Figure 2.

Optical and morphological characterization of the smectic-based hybrid gels containing gelatin, [BMIM][DCA], and 8CB. (a) IL [BMIM][DCA] and the smectogenic 8CB, (b) microscopy photograph of an 8CB droplet exhibiting a ring of TFCDs, which suggests that the projection of the director field onto the plane of the substrate is radial within the area contained in the circular basis of the defect,²¹ (c) micrograph with crossed polarizers of a hybrid gel prepared with 8CB, (d) enlargement of the area depicted inside the white rectangle in (c), (e) AFM topographical image of the toric focal domains in a ring formation, (f) bright-field photograph of the texture shown in (c). The white arrows mark some of the IL interfaces that appear dark under crossed polarizers, for example (c), (g) enlargement of the area depicted inside the white rectangle in (f), and (h) AFM topographical image of one of the droplets that appear dark under crossed polarizers.