Introduction to Liquid Crystals

Introduction and historical overview

Research on liquid crystal has been involved in chemistry, physics, Biology,electric and electronic engineering and many other fields. Most of this research has been reported by the universities and research institutions. The study of liquid crystals began in1888 by Australian Botanist F. Reinitzer . Liquid crystal materials are unique in their properties and uses. As research into this field continues and as new applications are developed, liquid crystals will play an important role in modern technology.

What are Liquid Crystals?

The term Liquid Crystals seems to be a self-contradiction as it suggest that a substance is in two quite different state of matter at the same time. The two most common states of condensed matter are the isotropic liquid phase and the crystalline solid phase. In a crystal, the molecules or atoms have both orientational and three-dimensional positional order over a long range. In an isotropic liquid, however, the molecules have neither positional nor orientational order, they are distributed randomly. There is no degree of order, so three degrees of freedom are left. There is no preferred direction in a liquid, thus the name isotropic. The transition from one state to another normally occurs at a very precise temperature. When pure crystalline solid is heated beyond its melting temperature, it undergoes a single transition to isotropic liquid. e.g. ice-water is such a common phase transition. There are, however many organic compound that do not immediately transform to liquid phase when heated beyond the melting temperature but exhibit more than a single transition from solid to liquid showing the existence of one or more intermediate phases, exhibiting the properties of both solids and liquids. For examples p-azoxy anisole when heated does not transform into the liquid state but adopts structure (turbid condition) that is both birefringence and fluid the consistency varying with different compounds that of a paste to that of a freely
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flowing liquid Transitions are definite and precisely reversible. Materials undergoing such a phase transitions are called Liquid Crystals.

Figure 1

History of liquid crystals

Figure 2 The discovery of liquid crystals is thought to have occurred nearly 150 years agoalthough its significance was not fully realized until over a hundred years later. Around the middle of the last century Virchow, Mettenheimer et al. have found that the nerve fiber they were studying formed a fluid substance when left in water whichexhibited a strange behaviour when viewed using polarized light. They did not realize this was a different phase but they are attributed with the first observation of liquid crystals. Later, in 1877, Further investigations of this phenomenon were carried out polarized optical microscope designed by himself, the existence of "crystals [which] can exist with a softness that one could call them nearly liquid". He found that one substance would change from a clear liquid to a cloudy liquid before crystallising but
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thought that this was simply an imperfect phase transition from liquid to crystalline. The first reported documentation of the LC state was through an accidental observation by an Austrian botanist, Friedrich Reinitzer in 1888, working in the Institute of Plant Physiology at the University of Prague. He observed double melting" behaviour of cholesteryl benzoate. The crystals of this material melted at 145.5 oC into a cloudy fluid, which upon further heating to 178.5oC became clear. This discovery represented the first recorded documentation of the LC phase. He was the first to suggest that this cloudy fluid was a new phase of matter. He has consequently been given the credit for the discovery of the liquid crystalline phase. Puzzled by his discovery, Reinitzer turned for help to the German physicist Otto Lehmann, who was an expert in crystal optics. Lehmann became convinced that the cloudy liquid had a unique kind of order. In contrast, the transparentliquid at higher temperature had the characteristic disordered state of all common liquids.Eventually he realized that the cloudy liquid was a new state of matter and coined thename "liquid crystal," illustrating that it was something between a liquid and a solid, sharing important properties of both. In a normal liquid the properties are isotropic, i.e. the same in all directions. In a liquid crystal they are not; they strongly depend on direction even if the substance itself is fluid. That new types of liquid crystalline states of order were discovered. Up till 1890 all the liquid crystalline substances that had been pazoxyanisole, was produced by Gatterman and Ritschke. Subsequently more liquid crystals were synthesized and it is now possible to produce liquid crystals with specificpredetermined material properties. Maier and Saupe formulated a microscopic theory of liquid crystals, Frank and later Leslie and Ericksen developed continuum theories for static and dynamic systems and in 1968 scientists from RCA first demonstrated a liquid crystal display. The interest in liquid crystals has grown ever since, partly due to the great variety of phenomena exhibited by liquid crystals and partly because of the enormous commercial interest and importance of liquid crystal displays. Today, thanks to Reinitzer, Lehmann and their followers, we know that literally thousands of substances have a diversity of other states. Some of them have been found very usable in several technical innovations, among which liquid crystal screens and liquid crystal thermometers may be the best known. In the 1960s, a French theoretical physicist,Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, who had been working with magnetism and superconductivity, turned his interest to
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Introduction to Liquid Crystals

liquid crystals and soon found fascinating analogies between liquid crystals and superconductors as well as magnetic materials. His work was rewarded with the Nobel Prize in Physics 1991. The modern development of liquid crystal science has since been deeply influenced by the work of Pierre-Gilles de Gennes. This new idea was challenged by the scientific community, and some scientists claimed that the newly-discovered state probably was just a mixture of solid and liquid components. But between 1910 and 1930 conclusive experiments and early theories supported the liquid crystal concept at the same time. In 1922 the French scientist G. Friedel produced the first classification scheme of LCs, dividing them into three different types of mesogens(materials able to sustain mesophases), based upon the level of order the molecules possessed in the bulk material: 1.nematic (from the Greek word nematos meaning "thread"), 2.Smectic (from the Greek word smectos meaning "soap"), and 3.Cholesteric (better defined as Chiral nematic)[10]. Following these first observations and discoveries, the scientific research turned attention towards a growing number of compounds, which displayed liquid crystalline properties. In order to establish a relationship between the molecular structure and the exhibition of liquid crystalline properties, a series of systematic modifications of the structures of mesogens was undertaken, leading, in 1973, to the discovery of the most technologically and commercially important class of LCs to date: the 4-alkyl-4'- cyanobiphenyl (CB) of which an example, 4-pentyl-4'-cyanobiphenyl (5CB) 1 is illustrated in figure.

Figure 3: Molecular structure of 4-pentyl-4'-cyanobiphenyl (5CB) 1. (The transition temperatures are expressed in oC). These are the materials, which still constitute the simple common displays found in calculators or mobile phones. However, the numerous and increasingly sophisticated
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applications, relying upon the use of liquid crystalline materials, require such a complexity of superior properties to achieve improved devices performance, that the quest for ever new LCs has grown enormously over the last three decades. Nowadays, LCs play a dominant role in a large part of the display technology.

Liquid crystal is solid or liquid ?

It is sometimes difficult to determine whether a material is in a crystal or liquid crystal state.The amount of energy required to cause the phase transition is called latent heat of the transition and is useful to measure of how different the two phases are. In the case of cholesteryl myristate, the latent heat of solid to liquid crystal is 65 calories/gram, while the latent heat for liquid crystal to liquid transition is 7 calories/gram. These numbers allow us to answer the question posed earlier. The smallness the latent heat of liquid crystal to liquid phase transition is evidence that liquid crystal are more similar to liquids than they are to solids. when a solid melts to a liquid crystal, it loses most of the order it had and retains only a bit more order than a liquid possesses. This small amount of order is then lost at the liquid crystal to liquid phase transition. The fact that liquid crystals are similar to liquids with only a small amount of additional order,is the key to understanding many physical properties that make them natures most delicate state of matter.

Order Parameter
To quantify just how much order is present in a material, an order parameter (S) is defined. Traditionally, the order parameter is given as follows:

Figure 4

where theta is the angle between the director and the long axis of each molecule. The brackets denote an average over all of the molecules in the sample. In an isotropic liquid,the average of the cosine terms is zero, and therefore the order parameter is equal to zero. For a perfect crystal, the order parameter evaluates to one. Typical values for the order
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parameter of a liquid crystal range between 0.3 and 0.9, with the exact value a function of temperature, as a result of kinetic molecular motion. This is illustrated below for a nematic liquid crystal material.

Figure 5 The tendency of the liquid crystal molecules to point along the director leads to a condition known as anisotropy. This term means that the properties of a material depend on the direction in which they are measured. For example, it is easier to cut a piece of wood along the grain than against it. The anisotropic nature of liquid crystals is responsible for the unique optical properties exploited by scientists and engineers in a variety of applications.

Type of LCs
Mesomorphic State

Liquid Crystals Ordered fluid mesophase (Solid-like liquids)

Plastic Crystals Disordered Crystal mesophase (Liquid-like solid)

Thermotropic Liquid crystals (Non-amphiphilic)

Lyotrophic Liquid crystals (Amphiphilic)

Smectic (Two dimensional order)

Nemetic (One dimensional order)

Cholesteric (Chosterol-derivatives) (Helical structure)

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Introduction to Liquid Crystals

Different types of molecules can form liquid crystalline phases. The commonstructural feature is that these molecules are form anisotropic: one molecular axis is much longer or wider than another one. The two major categories are: 1.Thermotropic LCs, whose mesophase formation is temperature (T) dependent, and 2. Lyotropic LCs, whose mesophase formation is concentration and solvent dependent.

Lyotropic LCs
Lyotropic LCs are two-component systems where an amphiphile is dissolved in a solvent. In blends of different components phase transitions may also depend on concentration and these liquid crystals are called lyotropic. Thus, lyotropic mesophases are concentration and solvent dependent. The amphiphilic compounds are characterised by two distinct moieties, a hydrophilic polar "head" and a hydrophobic "tail". Examples of these kinds of molecules are soaps and various phospholipids like thosepresent in cell membranes.

Figure 6(a) sodium dodecylsulfate(sope)forming micelles & figure 6(b) a phospholipids. Chemical structure and cartoon representation of sodium dodecylsulfate (soap) forming micelles, and a phospholipids (lecitine), present in cell membranes, in a bilayer lyotropic liquid crystal arrangement. Today, Lytropic liquid crystalline materialshave been widely used as display devices and lytropics are also important for biological systems, e.g. membranes.
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Thermotropic LCs

Figure 7: liquid crystalline mesophases between the solid and isotropic liquid phase. Thermotropic transition occur in most liquid crystals, and they are defined by the fact that the transitions to the liquid crystalline state are induced thermally. That is, one can arrive at the liquid crystalline state by raising the temperature of a solid and/or lowering the temperature of a liquid.Condensed matter which exhibit intermediate thermodynamic phases between the crystalline solid and simple liquid state are now called liquid crystals or mesophases This fourth state of matter generally possess orientational or weak positional order and thus reveals several physical properties of crystals but flow like liquids. If transitions between the phases are given by temperature, they are called thermotropic While thermotropics two general classes of LCs: are presently mostly used for technical applications. The essential

requirement for a molecule to be a thermotropic LC is a structure consisting of a central rigid core (often aromatic) and a flexible peripheral moiety (generallyaliphatic groups). This structural requirement leads to 1. Calamitic LCs, and 2. Discotic LCs both of which have other molecular subclasses. Thermotropic liquid crystals can be classified into two types:

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Enantiotropic liquid crystals:
which can be changed into the liquid crystal state from either lowering the temperature of a liquid or raising of the temperature of a solid or mesomorphic transitions occur on heating the substance and these transition reveres in the opposite direction on cooling. Such a mesophase is called the enantiotropic mesophase.

Monotropic liquid crystals:

which can only be changed into the liquid crystal state from either an increase in the temperature of a solid or a decrease in the temperature of a liquid, but not both or there are many compounds, which on heating do not exhibit mesophase and directly pass into an isotropic liquid but on cooling, they exhibit a mesophase is termed as monotropic mesophase.

This monotropic temperature is also reversible. In general, thermotropic mesophases occur because of anisotropic dispersion forces between the molecules and because of packing interactions. Although the term thermotropic and lyotropic are widely used, Gray and Winso prefer the t erms amphiphillic (for lyotropics) and non-amphiphillic (for thermotropics ).

Polymorphism:
Many Liquid crystalline substances which have exclusively smectic mesophase (structure) or exclusively nematic mesophase (structure). But some can exist as both type Of mesophase, smectic followed by nematic and they have definite transition temperature defining the stability of the different phase,which are always reproducible.there are substance possessing more than one smectic phase having sharp temperature range of stability of different phase.this phenomenon is known as polymorphism.

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Figure 8: Schematical phase sequence of a liquid crystal. From left to right: smectic C phase (tilt angle between layer normal and mean orientation of the molecules),smectic A phase(layered structure,no tilt),nematic phase,isotropic phase. Above the clearing temperature (Tc) the liquid crystal becomes an isotropic liquid. These properties make liquid crystals an interesting object for the application of thermodynamical methods.

Calamitic LCs
Calamitic or rod-like LCs are those mesomorphic compounds that possess an elongated shape, responsible for the form anisotropy of the molecular structure, as the result of the molecular length (l) being significantly greater than the molecular breadth (b), as depicted in the cartoon representation in figure.

Figure 9: Cartoon representation of calamitic LCs, where length(l) >> breadth(b). Calamitic mesogens usually follow the general structural formula shown in figure.

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Figure 10: General structure of calamitic LCs. R' and R" are often flexible terminal units such that at least one R group is an alkyl chain, A, B, C, and D are used to generally describe ring systems (phenyl,

cyclohexyl,heteroaromatics, and heterocycles) and [L] represents the linking units, such as CH=N, COO or N=N that can increase the length and flexibility of the molecule, whilst preserving a compatible linear shape suitable for mesophase formation. Calamitic LCs can exhibit two common types of mesophases: 1 Nematic, and 2. Smectic.

Nematic phase

Figure 11: Cartoon representation of N phase The word nematic is derived from the greek word Nema meaning thread like. Under
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the polarsing microscope, the nematic phase is seen as thread schlieren texture. This is the most liquid like structure in which, contrary to isotropic liquids, one or two molecular axes are oriented parallel to one another resulting in an orientational longrange order and short positional order. Molecules can rotate by both the axes, the molecules have several possibility of intermolecular mobility. Because of the highmobility, the nematic phases have low viscosities. They are anisotropic with respect to optical properties, viscosity, electrical and magnetic susceptibility, electrical and thermal conductivity. The nematic substance separate as spherical drops form the melt or solution, which coalesce to give the threaded structure. The least ordered mesophase (the closest to the isotropic liquid state) is the nematic (N) phase, where the molecules have only an orientational order. The molecular long axis points on average in one favoured direction referred to as the director. The classical example of LC displaying a nematic mesophase is the 5CB 1. The molecules are oriented, on average, in the same direction referred to as the director,with no positional ordering with respect to each other. The molecules in the nematic phase are oriented on average along a particular direction. In consequence, there is a macroscopic anisotropy in many material properties, such as dielectric constants and refractive indices. This is the phase which is used in many liquid crystal devices (e.g., the"twisted nematic" cell), because the average orientation may be manipulated with an electric field and the polarization of light will follow the molecular orientation as it changes though a cell.typical response times are in the millisecond range.

Figure 12: schlieren texture of a nematic film with surface point defects (boojums). Thin nematic film on isotropic surface: 1-dimensional periodicity. Photos courtesy of Oleg Lavrentovich http://www.lci.kent.edu/ALCOM/oleg.html. (c) Nematic thread-like texture. After these textures the nematic phase was named, as nematic Photo courtesy of Ingo Dierking.
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Introduction to Liquid Crystals

On optical examination of a nematic, one rarely sees the idealized equilibrium configuration. Some very prominent structural perturbation appear as threads from which nematics take their name. These threads are analogous to dislocations in solids and have been termed disclinations by Frank. Several typical textures of nematics are shown in. The first one is a schlieren texture of a nematic film. This picture was taken under a polarization microscope with polarizer and analyzer crossed. From every point defect emerge four dark brushes. For these directions the director is parallel either to the polarizer or to the analyzer. The colors are newton colors of thin films and depend on the thickness of the sample. Point defects can only exist in pairs. One can see two types of boojums with opposite sign of topological charge; one type with yellow and red brushes, the other kind not that colorful. The difference in appearance is due to different core structures for these defects of differentcharge. The second texture is a thin film on isotropic surface. Here the periodic stripe structure is a spectacular consequence of the confined nature of the film. It is a result of the competition between elastic inner forces and surface anchoring forces. The surface anchoring forces want to align the liquid crystals parallel to the bottom surface and perpendicular to the top surface of the film. The elastic forces work against the resulting vertical distortions of the director field. When the film is sufficiently thin, the lowest energy state is surprisingly archived by horizontal director deformations in the plane of the film. The current picture shows a 1-dimensional periodic pattern. Many compounds are known to form nematic mesophase. A few typical examples are sketched in . From a steric point of view, molecules are rigid rods with the breadth to width ratio from 3:1 to 20:1.

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Figure 13 Typical compounds forming nematic mesophases: (PAA) p-azoxyanisole. From a rough steric point of view, this is a rigid rod of length 20A and width 5A. The nematic state is found at high temperatures (between 1160C and 1350C at atmospheric pressure). (MMBA) N-(p-methoxybenzylidene)-p-butylaniline. The nematic state is found at room temperatures (between 200C to 470C). Lacks chemical stability. (5CB) 4- pentyl-4-cyanobiphenyl. The nematic state is found at room temperatures (between 24C and 35C).

Smectic phases
The word "Smectic" is derived from the Greek word for soap. This seemingly ambiguous origin is explained by the fact that the thick, slippery substance often found at the bottom of a soap dish is actually a type of smectic liquid crystal. Molecules in this phase show a degree of translational order not present in the nematic. Smectic phase (Liquid Crystal) retain a two dimensional order. In the smectic phase the layer of the molecules are quite flexible. Smectic phase gives focal conic texture. It extends all over the specimen an when examined under polarised light it gives a fan-like appearance. It is unaffected by magnetic and electric fields. A number of different type of smectic liquid crystals are known which differ from each other in the way of layer formation. The increased order means that the smectic state is more solid-likethan the nematic.smectic-A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I.A number of different classes of smectics have been recognized.

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Figure 14: Cartoon representation of (a) the SmA phase,and (b) the SmC phase.

In Smectic A: It has a layer structure inside the layers, the molecules are parallel their long
axes perpendicular to the plane. These are optically uniaxial and hence homeotropic texture extinguishes light between crossed polarizes. It gives focal conic texture (or batonnets).

Smectic-C: (Titled)

Figure 15: Smectic C phase is closely related to Smectic-A phase. Smectic-C is a tilted (as shown above) from Smectic-A. The major difference between the two is the tilt (inclined) (Monoclinic symmetry) therefore, it is impossible to have homeotropic texture. It exhibitschlieren texture. It can also form focal conic texture. Broken fan shaped texture. In this in character. An example of a molecular structure displaying a smectic mesophase is given by the quaterphenyl derivativ illustrated in Figur, where the presence of such an extended aromatic core, characterised by a large phenyl (ph) system, is responsible for the establishment of lateral stacking interactions between adjacent molecules, resulting in a layered organisation (SmA and SmC)

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Cr1
4

123

Cr2

166

Cr3

180

Cr

293

SmC

324

SmA

327

Figure 16: 4,4"'-Bis-nonyloxy-[1,1';4',1";4",1''']quaterphenyl 2 exhibiting SmA and SmC phases. (The transition temperatures are expressed in oC). In general a smectic, when placed between glass slides, does not assume the simple form. The layers, preserving their thickness, become distorted and can slide over one another in order to adjust to the surface conditions. The optical properties (focal conic texture) of the smectic state arise from these distortions of the layers. Typical textures formed by smectics are shown in.

Figure 17: (a,b) Focal-conic fan texture of a smectic A liquid crystal (courtesy of Chandrasekhar S., Krishna Prasad and Gita Nair) (c) Focal-conic fan texture of a chiral smectic C liquid crystal.

Smectic C* (Chiral) - Ferroelectric

The nematic and Smectic-A (SmA) liquid crystal phases are too symmetric to allow any vector order, such as ferroelectricity. The tilted smectics, however, do allow ferroelectricity if they are composed of chiral molecules. The pictures below show the original ferroelectric LC, DOBAMBC.

Figure 18
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Introduction to Liquid Crystals

In the simplest case, the Smectic-C (SmC), the average long molecular axis is tilted from the layer normal z by a fixed angle but the molecules are free to rotate on the so-defined tilt cone. The phase has a C2 symmetry axis perpendicular to both the molecular director and the layer normal. The molecules exhibit a net spontaneous polarization along this axis. The magnitude of the polarization depends on temperature, generally decreasing as the tilt angle goes to zero at the SmC-SmA phase transition. The following figure shows the geometry of the chiral SmC phase.

Figure 19: Chiral SmC phase: Ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) also exhibit a sponteneous helixing of the polarization, so that over macroscopic distances(a few microns, say) the polarizationaverages to zero. Since the coupling of the polarization to applied fields is linear in the field, this means that FLCs can be made to switch quickly (typically within a few microseconds) FLCs are now included in several display technologies, the most popular of which use the surface stabilized (SSFLC) geometry.

Surface-Stabilized Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals

Although the molecular director in bulk ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) adopts a helical structure, Noel Clark and Sven Lagerwall found in 1980 that by confining the LC material between

closely-spaced glass plates (spaced closer than the ferroelectric helix pitch), could be suppressed.
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natural

helix

Introduction to Liquid Crystals

This principle is illustrated in the polarized micrograph above, where helix lines are largely absent in the thinner (upper right) part of the cell. Clark and Lagerwall found that thesmectic layers were oriented approximately perpendicular tothe glass. Furthermore, they discovered that such cells could be switched rapidly between two optically distinct, stable states simply by alternating the sign of an applied electric field. The electro-opticproperties of an SSFLC depend strongly on the layer geometry as well as on the nature of the orienting properties of the bounding glass plates. SSFLCs are being studied in many research laboratories throughout the world. They form the basis for the development of optical shutters, phase plates, and of high-resolution color displays.

Antiferroelectric LCs
Antiferroelectric liquid crystals are similar to ferroelectric liquid crystals,although the

molecules tilt in an opposite sense in alternating layers as sho in figure. In consequence, the layer-by-layer polarization points in opposite directions. These materials are just beginning to find their way into devices, as they are fast, and devices can be made "bistable".

Cholesteric Phases (Chiral nematic)

Figure 20
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Nematic chiral nematic

Figure 21: The molecules shown are merely representations of the many chiral nematic mesogens lying in the slabs of infinitesimal thickness with a distribution of orientation around the director. The phase was first observed in cholesterol derivatives, hence it is known as cholestesteric phase. The cholesteric (or chiral nematic) liquid crystal phase is typically composed of nematic mesogenic molecules containing a chiral center which produces intermolecular forces that favour alignment between molecules at a slight angle to one another. This leads to the formation of a structure which can be visualized as a stack of very thin 2-D nematic-like layers with the director in each layer twisted with respect to those above and below. In this structure, the directors actually form in a continuous helical pattern about the layer normal as illustrated by the black arrow in the following figure and animation. The black arrow in the animation represents director orientation in the succession of layers along the stack. Various colour changes can be observed by winding or unwinding the helix. This can be done by means of changing temperature, mechanical disturbance like pressure or shear.liquid crystals of this type is mostly optically active.the cholesteric liquid crystals are optically uniaxial with negative character, it can scatter the light to give bright colour and it shows strong rotalory power. Three type of texture are generally observed in cholesteric phases. 1. Focal conic texture 2. Planar texture and 3. Blue phase (N*-Phase).

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Pitch:
An important characteristic of the cholesteric mesophase is the pitch. The pitch, p, is defined as the distance it takes for the director to rotate one full turn in the helix as illustrated in the above animation. A byproduct of the helical structure of the chiral nematic phase, is its ability to selectively reflect light of wavelengths equal to the pitch length, so that a color will be reflected when the pitch is equal to the corresponding wavelength of light in the visible spectrum. The effect is based on the temperature dependence of the gradual change in director orientation between successive layers (illustrated above), which modifies the pitch length resulting in an alteration of the wavelength of reflected light according to the temperature. The angle at which thedirector changes can be made larger and thus tighten the pitch, by increasing thedecreasing the temperature of the molecules increases the pitch length of the chiral nematic liquid crystal.

Figure 22 This makes it possible to build a liquid crystal thermometer that displays the temperature of its environment by the reflected color. Mixtures of various types of thesetemperature change. Such sensors are used for thermometers often in the form of heat sensitive films to detect flaws in circuit board connections, fluid flow patterns, condition of batteries, the presence of radiation or in novelties such as "mood" rings.

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Figure 23: (a) Cholesteric fingerprint texture. The line pattern is due to the helical structure of the cholesteric phase, with the helical axis in the plane of the substrate. Photo courtesy of Ingo Dierking.(b)A short-pitch cholesteric liquid crystal in Grandjean or standing helix texture, viewed between crossed polarizers. Thebright colors are due to the difference in rotatory power arising from domains with different cholesteric pitch occuring on rapid cooling close to the smectic A* phase where the pitch strongly diverges with decreasing temperature. Photo courtesy of Per Rudqvist. (c) Long-range orientation of cholesteric liquid crystalline DNA mesophases occurs at magnetic field strengths exceeding 2 Tesla. The image presented above illustrates this long-range order in DNA solutions approaching 300 milligrams per milliliter. Parallel lines denoting the periodicity of the cholesteric mesophase appear at approximately 45-degrees from the axis of the image boundaries.

Discotic LCs
In 1977, a second type of mesogenic structure, based on discotic (disc-shaped) molecular structures was discovered. The first series of discotic compounds to exhibit mesophase belonged to the hexa-substituted benzene derivatives 1 synthesised by S. Chandrasekhar et al.

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Figure 24: Molecular structure of the first series of discotic LCs discovered: the benzenehexa-n-alkanoate derivatives. Similarly to the calamitic LCs, discotic LCs possess a general structure comprising a planar (usually aromatic) central rigid core surrounded by a flexible periphery, represented mostly by pendant chains (usually four, six, or eight), as illustrated in the cartoon representation in. As can be seen, the molecular diameter (d) is much greater than the disc thickness (t), imparting the form anisotropy to the molecular structure.

Figure 25: Cartoon representation of the general shape of discotic LCs, where d>>t. Discotic LCs, as well as calamitic LCs, can show several types of mesophases, with varying degree of organisation. The two principle mesophases are: 1. Nematic discotic and 2. Columnar.

Nematic discotic phase

Nematic discotic (ND) is the least ordered mesophase, where the molecules have only orientational order being aligned on average with the director as illustrated in figure.there is no positional order.

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Figure 26: Cartoon representation of the ND phase, where the molecules are aligned in the same orientation, with no additional positional ordering.

Columnar phases
Disk-shaped mesogens can orient themselves in a layer-like fashion known as the discotic nematic phase. If the disks pack into stacks, the phase is called a discotic columnar. The columns themselves may be organized into rectangular or hexagonal arrays.

Figure 27 Chiral discotic phases, similar to the chiral nematic phase, are also known . The columnar phase is a class of liquid-crystalline phases in which molecules assembl into cylindrical structures to act as mesogens.

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Figure 28: (a)hexagonal columnar phase colh(with typical spherulitic texture); (b) Rectangular phase of a discotic liquid crystal (c) hexagonal columnar liquid-crystalline phase.

Figure 29: Typical discotics: derivative of a hexabenzocoronene and 2,3,6,7,10,11-hexakishexytriphenylene.K (70K)colh (100k)I. Originally, these kinds of liquid crystals were called discotic liquid crystals because the columnar structures are composed of flat-shaped discotic molecules stacked

one-dimensionally. Since recent findings provide a number of columnar liquid crystals consisting of non-discoid mesogens, it is more common now to classify this state of matter and compounds with these properties as columnar liquid crystals.

Figure 30: (1)Columnar phase formed by the disc-shaped molecules and the most common arrangements of columns in two-dimensional lattices: (a) hexagonal, (b) rectangular, and (c) herringbone. (2,3) MD simulation results: snapshot of the hexabenzocoronene system
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with the C12 side chains. Aromatic cores are highlighted. Both top and side views are shown. T = 400 K, P = 0.1MPa. Columnar liquid crystals are grouped by their structural order and the ways of packing of the columns. Nematic columnar liquid crystals have no long-range order and are less organized than other columnar liquid crystals. Other columnar phases with longrange order are classified by their two-dimensional lattices: hexagonal, tetragonal, rectangular, and oblique phases. The discotic nematic phase includes nematic liquid crystals composed of flat-shaped discotic molecules without long-range order. In this phase, molecules do not form specific columnar assemblies but only float with their short axes in parallel to the director (a unit vector which defines the liquid-crystalline alignment and order). In the years following the discovery of the first discotic mesogens, further investigations lead to the synthesis of a vast number of new discotic

figure 31:Molecular structure of some discotic mesogens: 2,3,6,7,10,11- hexakishexyloxytriphenylene 3,3,10-dipentylperylenediscogenderivative 4, 2,3,7,8,12,13-hexakispentyloxy-10,15-dihydro25 | P a g e

5H-tribenzo

[a,d,g]

cyclononene

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(bowl-shaped discotic) 5 , porphyrin metallomesogen 6. (The transition temperatures are expressed in oC, and the mesophase in brackets represents a monotropictransition).

Polycatenar LC's
Polycatenar mesogens represent a hybrid class of thermotropic LCs, which can be described with intermediate molecular features between classical rod-like and disc-like mesogens. Schematically the central core of polycatenar LCs comprises a calamitic region, with half-discs on the extremities. This hybrid molecular structure allows both calamitic and columnar phases to be generated, depending on the specific molecular structure of the components.

Figure

32:

Cartoon

representation

of

the

architectural molecular structure of polycatenar LCs. Polycatenar molecules possess a number of flexible alkyl chain substituents,most of the cases classical rod- like molecules, like compound 7. Examples of bi-, tri-, tetra- and hexa-catenar LCs are shown in figure.

Figure 33: Molecular structure of two bi-catenar mesogens 4-pentyl-4'-pentyl biphenyl 7 and 4'-[(3'', 4-bis-hexyloxy-benzylidene)-amino]-4-carbonitrile 8.

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Figure 34:molecular structure of a tri-catenar mesogen.

Figure 35: Molecular structure of tetra-catenar mesogens 2, 2-bipyridine derivative 10 and liquid crystalline 3, 4-dioctyloxystilbazole silver complex 11.

Figure 36: Molecular structure of a hexa-catenar mesogen 12. Compound 8 and 9 show close similarity to the class of LCs named swallow-tailed LCs and compounds 10 and 11 show similarity to the bi-swallow-tailed LCs

Twist-Grain boundary phase (TGB)

The TGB phase was Proposed by Renn and Lubensky and discovered by Goodby et al. These are smectic phase where arrays of defects from part of the ordered structure. The nature
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of the SmC and SmC* TGB structures and their relationship to larger scale superstructures are still open issues.

Banana-shaped LCs
Banana-shaped LCs are similar to calamitic LCs, but contain a molecular kink.. They have an elongated shape, with the molecular length being significantly larger than the molecular breadth. These LCs as well as generating the mesophases associated with calamitic LCs, generate a set of their own mesophases. These mesophases have been given the nomenclature of B1-B7 depending on the order of discovery. They are closely related to the smectic phases, for instance in the B2 mesophase the molecules are tilted as in the SmC mesophase but also resemble to the SmA phase.

Figure 37 In smectic liquid crystals Banana-shaped molecules on smectic layers (smectic C) have a spontaneous polarization, P.

Figure 38:

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Liquid crystal 'blue phases' recent advances
Liquid crystal 'blue phases'are highly fluid selfassembled three-dimensional cubic defect

structures that exist over narrow temperature ranges in highly chiral liquid crystals.The characteristic period of these defects is of order of the wavelength of visibal light,and they give rise to vivid specular reflections that are vivid specular reflections that are controllable with external fields. Blue phases may be considered as examples of tuneable photonic crystals with many potential applications. The disadvantage of these materials, as predicted theoretically and proved experimentally, is that they have limited thermal stability: they exist over a small temperature range (0.52 C) between isotropic and chiral nematic (N*) thermotropic phases, which limits their practical applicability.

Effect of Chemical Constitution on Mesomorphism:

Most of the rod-like liquid crystalline compounds consist of two or more rings, which are directly bonded to one another or connected by linking groups. The chemical structure of many mesogens can be represented by the general formula-I

R1

L1

L2

R2

Z1

Z2

Z3

Here L is linking group. The molecule may have terminal substituent (R) and lateral substituent (Z). O-Aromatic/Alicyclic/Heterocyclic rings/ cores. The core is usually a relatively stiff unit, compared to the terminal lateral substituents in most cases are small units such as halogens, methyl, methoxy, hydroxy, cyano groups etc. however, now liquid crystals with long lateral substituents are known.

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Effect of Linking Groups:
Small chemical groups between the rings of liquid crystal molecule can increase the length of the molecule while preserving the linear shape. However, when the linking groups produce a bent molecular shape, the mesogenic potential of the molecule is diminished.Besides the geometry of the molecules, additional effects such as conjugative interaction of the linking groups with aromatic groups, effects due to polarity of the linking groups etc. Also play an important role in liquid crystalline of a molecule. The as in the case of non- aromatic compounds, there are no conjugative effects, however, the effect of terminal substituents may sometimes overcome this effect.

Effect of Terminal Substituents:

Terminally substituted compounds exhibit more stable mesophases compared to unsubstituted mesogenic compounds. The most common terminal substituents are the alkyl and alkoxy groups. The behavior within the homologous series shows that in general there is an alteration of TN-I temperatures. This can be explained by the alteration of the length to breadth ratio.shows a typical six-member ring, with an attached alkyl chain. Alteration effect in a terminal alkyl chain.

Figure 39:alteration effect in a terminal alkyl chain. The attachment of an odd numbered carbon atom substituent increases the length substituent. This principle behavior seen in alkyl chain can also be found in other flexible chains. X-rays and other methods have been used to show that compounds containing strongly polar groups like -CN and -NO2 from double molecules that exist in equilibrium with single molecules. Due to such dimerization, the breadth increases by the factor of 2 and length only by a factor of 1.1~1.4. Hence, the effective L/B ratio should be reduced. But, highly polar compounds have a much higher density than low polar compounds. This accounts for the
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increase in clearing temperature. The halogens and isothio-cyanato groups introduce relatively large positive dielectric anisotropy into the molecules however, there is no association.depends substantially on its position in a chain. When the branch is nearer the centre of the molecules the clearing temperature is lowered. When -CH2 group in the terminal chains are replaced by an oxygen atom, clearing temperature decreases. Oxygen atom seems to reduce the stiffness of the chain. The terminal group efficiency order which has been compiled for Smectic phase in rod-like aromatic system is:Ph > -Br > -Cl > -F > -NMe2 > -Me > -H >-NO2 > -OMe > -CN and the nematic groupefficiency order is, -Ph > -NHCOCH3 >-CN > -OCH3 >-NO2 > - Cl > - Br > -N (CH3)2 >-CH3 > - F .

Intermolecular Hydrogen Bonding

Intermolecular hydrogen bonding interactions have shown great potential in the preparation of new liquid crystalline systems especially thermotropic LCs. They have been used as links, connecting two independent molecular components. These form anisotropic molecules, which complies with the main characteristic of liquid crystal molecules. Most of these systems are based on pyridine and acid derivatives. The hydrogen bond in the liquid crystal field enables molecular components that do not themselves exhibit the property, form supramolecular species, which show the liquid crystal behaviour. Also these liquid crystal moieties have greatly enhanced mesomorphic range.

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Physical properties of liquid crystals.

Figure 40: physical properties of liquid crystals As a result of orientational order, most physical properties of liquid crystals are anisotropic and must be described by second rank tensors. Examples are the birefringence. Additionally, there are new physical qualities, which do not appear in simple liquids as e.g. elastic or frictional torques (rotational viscosity) acting on static or dynamic director deformations, respectively. The most remarkable features of liquid crystals with respect to applications are due to theiranisotropic optical properties. Nematics, and SmAs are uniaxial, SmCs weakly biaxial. Cholesterics give rise to Bragg reflections if the helix pitch is in the magnitude of the light wavelength. As mentioned above these properties are carried by a fluid, soft material, and therefore are extremely sensitive against external perturbations. Orientational order and hence birefringence can be manipulated easily e.g. with the help of rather weak magnetic, electric or optical fields, leading to huge magneto-optical, electro-optical and opto-optical effects. The most successful application are liquid crystal displays well-known from wristwatches, pocket calculators or flat screensturned out that orientational order can be also affected by optical fields leading to rather sensitive
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opto-optical effects and nonlinear optical properties, which are important e.g.for all-optical switching and other photonic devices in future optical information technologies.

Birefringence in Liquid Crystals

Liquid crystals are found to be birefringent, due to their anisotropic nature. That is, they demonstrate double refraction (having two indices of refraction). Light polarized parallel to the director has a different index of refraction (that is to say it travels at a different velocity) than light polarized perpendicular to the director. In the following diagram, the blue lines represent the director field and the arrows show the polarization vector.

Figure 41 Thus, when light enters a birefringent material, such as a nematic liquid crystal sample, the process is modeled in terms of the light being broken up into the fast (called the ordinary ray) and slow (called the extraordinary ray) components. Because the twocomponents travel at different velocities, the waves get out of phase. When the rays are recombined as they exit the birefringent material, the polarization state has changed because of this phase difference.

Figure 42: Light traveling through a birefringent medium will take one of two paths depending on its polarization.

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Liquid Crystal Textures
The term texture refers to the orientation of liquid crystal molecules in the vicinity of a surface. Each liquid crystal mesophase can form its own characteristic textures, which are useful in identification. We consider the nematic textures here. If mesogenic materials are confined between closely spaced plates with rubbed surfaces (as described above) and oriented with rubbing directions parallel, the entire liquid crystal sample can be oriented in a planar texture, as shown in the following diagram. Mesogens can also be oriented normal to a surface with the use of appropriate polymer films or in the presence of an electric field applied normal to the surface, giving rise to the homeotropic texture, as illustrated below.

Figure 43

Experimental Identification of Liquid Crystals

Liquid crystal phases can be identified by a variety of techniques like optical polarizing microscope, differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray analysis, miscibility studies, neutron scattering studies, cryo-transmission electron microscopy , nuclear magnetic resonance and fabry-perot Scattering studies. A few of these are described here.

Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC)

Heat is needed to melt a crystalline solid to a liquid crystalline phase. The heat is measured using a DSC instrument. Although DSC cannot identify the type of phase, it provides valuable information like the exact transition temperatures and the enthalpies of the different phases.

Polarizing Microscope
In a polarising microscope, the light is polarized by passing it through a polarizing filter. It then passes through the sample, and then through a second polarizing filter called the analyzer. When a liquid crystal material is placed on a microscope slide with a cover slip and
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the slide is heated and viewed using a polarizing microscope, textures characteristic of each type of liquid crystal can be seen. Cooling the liquid can also yield these textures

X-ray Crystallography
This can be used to study the extent of translational or positional order, and thus infer the type of liquid crystal phase.

Extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy(EXAFS)

EXAFS was used to investigate the local structure of the polar spines of metal ion soaps in the columnar liquid crystalline state.

Applications of liquid crystals Display application of liquid crystals

The most common application of liquid crystal technology is liquid crystal displays (LCDs.)This field has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry, and many significant scientific and engineering

discoveries have been made. Liquid crystal display devices consisting of d ig devices consisting of digital readouts are used in watches , calculators , and several other instruments like mobile and many household electric appliances . Some liquid crystal substances could be useful in computer industry, for making new computer elements with high memory capacity.

Figure 44 Liquid crystals displays (LCDS) had a humble beginning with wrist watches in the seventies.Continued research and development in this multidisciplinary growth in crystal display (LCDs) have many adventages over other display types. They are flate and compact,
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posses extremely low power consumption (Microwats perdoes not fade with an increase in the illumination intensity. They work both in transmitive and reflective modes in a wide operating temperature range and with a long life time. Because that, LCDs are the most economically produced display systems.LCDs have a brilliant future in high defination TV system, personal computer, measuring devices etc. The most widely used electro optics effects in display are the twist, super twist and guest host modes. There are many types of liquid crystal displays, each with unique properties. The most common LCD that is used for everyday items like watches and calculators is called the twisted nematic (TN) display. This device consists of a nematic liquid crystal sandwiched between two plates of glass. A special surface treatment is given to the glass so that the director at the top of the sample is perpendicular to the director at the bottom. This configuration sets up a 90 degree twist into the bulk of the liquid crystal, hence the name of the display. The underlying principle in a TN display (shown below) is the manipulation of polarised light. The left image shows that when light enters the TN cell,consider light polarisation rotates with the molecules. When the light emerges, its polarisation has rotated 90 degrees from when it entered.

Figure 45: Principle of twisted nematic LCDs The right image shows that the application of an electric current to these liquid crystals will "untwist" them to varying degrees, depending on the voltage. These liquid crystals are most popular for LCDs because they react predictably to electric current in such a way as to control light passage. Depending on the field strength, twisted nematic displays can switch between light and dark states, or somewhere in between (greyscale). How the molecules respond to a voltage is the important characteristic of this type of display. This link shows the
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optical response curve of a TN LCD. It also shows the response curve of a super-twisted nematic (STN) LCD, which rotates the director of the liquid crystal by 270 degrees instead of 90 degrees, and has some technical advantages over ordinary TN displays. Active matrix LCDs and STN (super twisted Nematic) LCDs are leading display technologies for portable application such as notebook computers.crystal materials. Advance liquid crystalline material had to be developed in order to fulfill the requirements of higher resolution and large size LCDs. For simple calculator and watch displays TN (Twisted Nematic) mixture based on cyanobiphenyls are used. These materials were first invented by G.W. Gray 25 years ago. Broad range TN mixtures with improved viewing angle using phenylcyclohexanes were then used for automative application. The introduction of STN displays requires materials with large dielectric anisotropy, eg. cyanoesters with lateral fluoro substitution. Thin film technology (TFT) displays requires liquid crystalline materials with high stability like fluorinated liquid crystals. The use of polymer liquid crystal (PLCs) in the display industries is an exciting area of research. A twisted nematic polymer liquid crystal cell can be used to make energy efficient liquid crystal phase. The orientation of the cell can be used to make energy efficient displays. The orientation of the cell is then chosen by applying a field across it, just as in hardens into a glass, the mesogens will be locked in that configuration and the field can be turned off. Side chain polymer liquid crystal exhibit good properties for application in optically nonlinear devices including optical wave guides and electrooptic modulators in poled polymeric slab-waveguides. More device are expected to be fabricated from PLCs in the future like optically-addressed spatial light modulators, tunable notch filters, optical amplifiers and laser beam deflectors. The properties of ferroelectric chiral SmC phase makethis material useful for films with application in non linear optics. A reviewon the use of liquid crystals in laser optics has also appeared in the literature.

Thermal mapping and non-destructive testing

Chiral nematic (cholesteric) liquid crystals reflect light with a wavelength equal to the pitch. Because the pitch is dependent upon temperature, the color reflected also is dependent upon temperature. Liquid crystals make it possible to accurately gauge temperature just by looking at the color of the thermometer. By mixing different compounds, a device for
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practically any temperature range can be built. More important and practical applications have been developed in such diverse areas as medicine and electronics. Special liquid crystal devices can be attached to the skin to show a "map" of temperatures. This is useful because often physical problems, such as tumors, have a different temperature than the surrounding tissue. Liquid crystal temperature sensors can also be used to find bad connections on a circuit board by detecting the characteristic higher temperature. The sensitivity of cholesteric liquid crystals to react to pressure as well as temperature by colour change is used to make some very interesting publicity materials and toys. Cholesteric liquid crystals can be used as an analytical tool to detect the presence of very small amounts of gases or vapours by colour changes to the extent of about 1 ppm. A film of cholesteryl liquid crystal may be applied to large uneven area. This makes it an ideal tool for thermal mapping and non-destructive testing. The great deal of flexibility in the color play range allows for a great diversity in potential applications ranging from food processing to electronics and space applications e.g. thermo chromic paints have been used on primed circuit boards to examine overheating of components. The area in which liquid crystal thermograph is of use in non destructive testing continued to grow due to the development on new chiral smectic materials which offer improved performance over the cholesteryl esters used in early applications. Thermo chromic liquid crystals are extensively used in medical applications, forehead thermometers also known as fever strips are based on different thermo chromic liquid crystal materials, thermal mapping of various areas of the body has been used as a diagnostic technique for a wide ranging group of medical conditions in which a temperature differential near the skin surface may be related to the disorder subcutaneoussurrounding tissues. Therefore, thermograph is an interesting candidate for cancer screening.

Medicinal Uses
Cholesteric liquid crystal mixtures have also been suggested for measuring body skin temperature, to outlines tumours etc. Any inflammation or construction of the vessels will naturally affect the temperature of the skin: this will help in the location of inflammation, since the warmer areas will outline by the colour pattern. In gynecology, where there is a possibility that a cessarian section may be necessary,
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liquid crystals can be used to locate the plecenta, thus avoiding the need for xray. Hence it is useful in controlled drug delivery. Recently their biomedical applications such as protein binding, phospholipids labeling and inmicrobe detection have been demonstrated. In psychology, cholesteric liquid crystals could be used in lie detectors. The molecular structure of liquid crystals allow for their application in gas and liquid chromatography as highly elective stationary phase. A number of models have been developed to describe more quantitatively the enhancement in selectivity that is obtained form the anisotropic orientational ordering of liquid crystals. Earlier use of liquid crystals as stationary phases in gas chromatography are available which can be prepared from either monomer or side chain polymeric liquid crystals.

Liquid Crystal as Solvents in Spectroscopy

Liquid crystalline media, particularly pneumatics, provide the bulk molecular orientation necessary for observation of spectroscopic details analogous to those obtained in solid state experiments, these media have been widely used as solvents in NMR, EPRapplicationhave appeared.

Liquid Crystal as Solvents in chemical reactions

Thermotropic liquid crystals have been used as solvents to after course or bimolecular thermal and photochemical reactions. The unique anisotropic properties of liquid crystals are utilized to control the efficiency and specificity in micro synthesis elucidation of reaction mechanism etc. factor that are importance in defining the ability of liquid crystals to control solute reactivity have been reviewed to be able to choose theliquid crystals of proper morphology as a solvent.

Guest-Host type Display

A pleochoric dye is added to Nematic host and the dye molecule gets oriented parallel to the host molecule since the colours of the dye depends on the orientation of the dye molecule an electric field causing reorientation in the Nematic host will causes a colour change. Guest-host displays and their use in military air crafts. Liquid crystal windows were also prepared to control the solar energy by fabricating it with phase change guest-host mixture. Liquid crystals glass cover is used to control the transmittance on light incident side at the
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solar cell. Solar cell having this cover maintains constant out put voltage under varying load situation.

Other Liquid Crystal Applications

Liquid crystals have a multitude of other uses. They are used for nondestructive mechanical testing of materials under stress. This technique is also used for the visualization of RF (radio frequency) waves in waveguides. They are used in medical ground is measured. Low molar mass (LMM) liquid crystals have applications including erasable optical disks, full color "electronic slides" for computer-aided drawing (CAD), and light modulators for color electronic imaging. As new properties and types of liquid crystals are investigated and researched, these materials are sure to gain increasing importance in industrial and scientific applications.

Liquid crystal polymers

Liquid crystal polymers (LCPs) are a unique class of wholly aromatic polyester polymers that provide previously unavailable high performance properties. A number of LCP resins were produced in the 1970s which displayed order in the melt phase analogous to that exhibited by non-polymeric liquid crystals. The structure of LCPs consists of densely packed fibrous polymer "chains" that provide self-reinforcement almost to the melting point. However, the commercial introduction of liquid crystal molded. Today, LCPs can be melt processed on conventional equipment at fast speeds with excellent replication of mold details. A relatively unique class of partially crystalline aromatic polyesters based on p-hydroxybenzoic acid and related monomers. Liquid crystal polymers are capable of forming regions of highly ordered structure while in the liquid phase. However, the degree of order is somewhat less than that of a regular solid crystal. Typically LCPs have outstanding mechanical properties at high temperatures, excellent chemical resistance, inherent flame retardancy and good weather ability. Liquid crystal polymers come in a variety of forms from sinterable high temperature to injection moldable compounds. LCPs are exceptionally inert. They resist stress cracking in the presence of most chemicals at elevated temperatures, including aromatic or halogenated hydrocarbons, strong acids, bases, ketones, and other aggressive industrial substances. Hydrolytic stability in boiling water is excellent.
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Environments that deteriorate the polymers are high-temperature steam, concentrated sulfuric acid, and boiling caustic materials.

Liquid Crystal of high - Strength fibers

An application of polymer liquid crystal that has been successfully developed for industry is the area of high strength fibers. eg. Kevlar fibers, which are used to make such things as helmets and bulletproof vests, is just one example of the use of polymer liquid crystal inapplication calling for strong, lightweight materials. Ordinary polymers have never able to demonstrate the stiffness necessary to complete against traditional materials like steel. It has been observed that polymers with long strength chains are significantly stronger than their tangled counter parts. Main chain liquid crystal polymers are well suited to ordering processes. For example, the polymer can be oriented in the desired liquid crystal phase and then quenched to create a highly ordered, strong solid. As these technologies continue to develop an increasing variety of new materials with strong and light-weight properties will become available. The recent discovery of ferroelectricity and antiferroelectricity on compounds composed of achiral banana-shaped molecules may extend the application of liquid crystal in the field of display technology. Work is in progress in many laboratories throughout the world in order to understand clear the structure and properties of these mesophases and to develop application of such materials.

Typical LCP applications

Electrical/Electronic applications Automotive applications Parts, Engineering Containers, Food appliances Industrial applications Connectors Optical applications Parts, Thin-walled
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Advantages of LCP
High heat resistance Flame retardant Chemical resistance Dimensional stability Mold ability Heat aging resistance Adhesion Low viscosity Wieldable Low cost

Disadvantages of LCP
Form weak weld lines Highly anisotropic properties Drying required before processing High Z-axis thermal expansion coefficient

New Liquid Crystal Composite Materials for Photorefractive Applications

The photorefractive effect is an energy efficient method through which image storage and retrieval can occur with outstanding image quality and high density. The photorefractive effect results from optically induced directional charge transport within the material. When the charges trap, an electric field is produced which modulates the materials index of refraction. When this effect is properly harnessed through a laser induced grating, image storage and retrieval can occur. Commercially available photorefractive materials currently available consist of inorganic ferroelectric crystals which are expensive and time consuming to grow. Liquid crystals represent a simpler and more economical alternative to presently available aterials. Furthermore, liquid crystals allow for greater versatility due to the ease with which different chromophores can be utilized to sensitize the material to different laser wavelengths. These materials also requirements and ease of hologram erasure. Liquid crystals through the application of magnetic fields, providing superior grating
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resolution compared to liquid crystals aligned solely through surfactant required for studies related to imaging biological tissue. This was accomplished using substituted phthalocyanines as electron donors and pyromellitimide as an electron acceptor. Polymer /liquid crystal composites whose photoconductive mechanism occurs in large part by intrachain electron hole trans-port, rather than solely through ion diffusion. This permits faster formation of the photo-refractive grating at smaller fringe spacings.

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