Flexible Bistable Smectic-A Liquid Crystal Device Using Photolithography and Photoinduced Phase Separation

Crystal templating through liquid-liquid phase separation.

Controlled induction of crystal nucleation is a highly desirable but elusive goal. Attempts to speed up crystallization, such as high super saturation or working near a liquid-liquid critical point, always led to irregular and uncontrollable crystal growth. Here, we show that under highly nonequilibrium conditions of spinodal decomposition, water crystals grow as thin wires in a template-less f...

Smectic-A and smectic-C phases and phase transitions in 8S5 liquid-crystal-aerosil gels.

High-resolution x-ray scattering studies of the nonpolar thermotropic liquid crystal 4-n-pentylphenylthiol-4'-n-octyloxybenzoate (8S5) in aerosil gel nanonetworks reveal that the aerosil-induced disorder significantly alters both the nematic to smectic-A and smectic-A to smectic-C phase transitions. The limiting 8S5 smectic-A correlation length follows a power-law dependence on the aerosil dens...

Phase diagram of a frustrated smectic liquid-crystal system and the absence of the incommensurate smectic-Ai2 phase.

Polymerization-induced phase separation in a liquid-crystal-polymer mixture.

Phase separation dynamics of a polymer dispersed liquid crystal

Phase separation in a polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC), consisting of a main chain liquid crystal (E7) and polymethyl methacryhte (PMMA), was studied by means of light scattering and optical microscopy. The PMMAm mixture exhibits an upper critical solution temperature (UCST), overlapping with a nematic-isotropic transition of the E7 liquid crystal. Several temperature quenches were under...