New Developments in Liquid Crystals Research

Liquid crystals (LCs) were discovered over a century ago, but their profound impact was in the past four decades through their successful implementation into electronic devices that we are using every day. The research on liquid crystals actively continues in the 21st century and offers unlimited potential in various display or non-display applications. This book covers novel topics related to LCs and is intended for a wide range of researchers in both, academia and industry, from beginners to advanced level professionals in many scientific areas, viz. materials science and engineering, chemistry, physics, optics, photonics, nanotechnology, electrical engineering, and so on. The book contains topics on nematic and cholesteric LCs, in the form of films or particles, as well as modified LC behaviour with variety of dopants, micron and nano-sized particles, microencapsulation of LC particles and modelling of their behaviour under an externally applied field. Topics related to the effect on nanomaterials on LC behaviour, as well as structural and magnetic properties of different types of iron-containing liquid crystals (metallo-mesogens) are covered, as well. Finally, an overview of different alignment technologies for nematic liquid crystals such as mechanical rubbing of polymer films, obliquely-deposited inorganic films, photo-irradiated, IB-bombarded and patterned surfaces, are briefly reviewed along with several novel alignment concepts. The state of the art in respective fields related to LCs in each chapter is given by leading experts.