Describes the main aspects of chirality in liquid crystals, and points out some of the open questions of current research. The chapters review the highlights of the important topics and questions.
Liquid crystals have attracted scientific attention for potential applications in advanced devices. Display technology is continuously growing and expanding and, as such, this book provides an overview of the most recent advances in liquid crystals and displays. Chapters cover such topics as nematic liquid crystals, active matrix organic light-emitting diodes, and tetradentate platinum(II) emitters, among others.
The Special Issue “Liquid Crystal Optical Devices” discusses recent developments in the rapidly advancing subject of liquid crystals (LCs). The book is composed of several contributions from researchers in the field of liquid crystals that deal with the broadly with aspects of optical devices ranging from a theoretical viewpoints to practical implications of the properties of LCs. This is the first Special Issue devoted solely to recent advances in the rapidly expanding subject of LCs, a unique class of substances that combines both ordered structures with quasi-liquid-like properties. This Special Issue offers a broad perspective of the present state of the art in design and an up-to-date account of the most recent advances and progress in the field of LCs, providing thorough coverage of the demonstrated optical devices and the comprehensive analysis needed by professionals and engineers in the field of LC. The material is carefully structured, providing readers with a solid foundation of the principles, capabilities, use, and limitations of LC optical devices. In addition, this book covers the principles, recent advances and future developments of liquid crystal beam steering devices as well as recent advances in adaptive liquid crystal lenses.
Essentially there are two variational theories of liquid crystals explained in this book. The theory put forward by Zocher, Oseen and Frank is classical, while that proposed by Ericksen is newer in its mathematical formulation although it has been postulated in the physical literature for the past two decades. The newer theory provides a better explanation of defects in liquid crystals, especially of those concentrated on lines and surfaces, which escape the scope of the classical theory. The book opens the way to the wealth of applications that will follow.
This open access book, published in the Soft and Biological Matter series, presents an introduction to selected research topics in the broad field of flowing matter, including the dynamics of fluids with a complex internal structure -from nematic fluids to soft glasses- as well as active matter and turbulent phenomena. Flowing matter is a subject at the crossroads between physics, mathematics, chemistry, engineering, biology and earth sciences, and relies on a multidisciplinary approach to describe the emergence of the macroscopic behaviours in a system from the coordinated dynamics of its microscopic constituents. Depending on the microscopic interactions, an assembly of molecules or of mesoscopic particles can flow like a simple Newtonian fluid, deform elastically like a solid or behave in a complex manner. When the internal constituents are active, as for biological entities, one generally observes complex large-scale collective motions. Phenomenology is further complicated by the invariable tendency of fluids to display chaos at the large scales or when stirred strongly enough. This volume presents several research topics that address these phenomena encompassing the traditional micro-, meso-, and macro-scales descriptions, and contributes to our understanding of the fundamentals of flowing matter. This book is the legacy of the COST Action MP1305 “Flowing Matter”.