Anatomy of a Discovery: The Twist–Bend Nematic Phase

New fluid states of matter, now known as liquid crystals, were discovered at the end 19th century and still provide strong themes in scientific research. The applications crystals continue to attract attention, most successful so far has been technology flat panel displays; this diversified recent years LCDs no longer dominate industry. Despite this, there is plenty more be uncovered science well new applications, novel types crystal phases discovered. simplest phase nematic together with its handed or chiral equivalent, named cholesteric phase. In latter, aligned molecules twist about an axis perpendicular their alignment axis, but 1970s a heliconical tilt angle less than 90° was predicted. discovery nearly 40 later described paper. Robert Meyer proposed that coupling between vector order parameter splay bend elastic distortion could result spontaneously splayed bent structures. Later, Ivan Dozov suggested splay–bend twist–bend structures stabilised if appropriate constants became negative. Theoretical speculation on experimental identification nematic–nematic transitions are reviewed paper, serendipitous 2010 1″,7″-bis(4-cyanobiphenyl-4′-yl)heptane (CB7CB) described.