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Focal conic domains (FCDs) in smectic-A liquid crystals have drawn much attention both for their exquisitely structured internal form and for their ability to direct the assembly of micro- and nanomaterials in a variety of patterns. A key…
Blue phase liquid crystal (BPLC) has important applications in adaptive lenses and phase modulators due to its polarization-independent property. During our efforts for development of the new materials, we found a novel phenomenology of…
Smectic liquid crystals vividly illustrate the subtle interplay of broken translational and orientational symmetries, by exhibiting defect structures forming geometrically perfect confocal ellipses and hyperbolas. Here, we develop and…
Liquid crystals (LCs) form an extremely rich range of self-assembled topological structures with artificially or naturally created topological defects. Some of the main applications of LCs are various optical and photonic devices, where…
Three liquid crystalline equimolar mixtures are formulated, each containing the MHPOBC compound and the homolog from the 3FmHPhF6 series with m = 4, 5, and 6. The properties of the mixtures are investigated by differential scanning…
Limited access to corrective eyewear remains a significant medical, societal, and economic challenge, even in the 21st century. More than 1 billion people suffer from uncorrected vision impairment, with the vast majority residing in…
The fabrication of assembled structures of topological defects in liquid crystals (LCs) has attracted much attention during the last decade, stemming from the potential application of these defects in modern technologies. A range of…
Recently we have formulated theory of bi-layer-dimerized chiral liquid antiferroelectric crystals. The spontaneous polarization has been increased owing to the strong interaction of the aromatic cores of the rod like liquid crystal…
In nature, many common insects have compound eyes composed of many small eyes arranged on a curved retina. This kind of vision systems have many advantages, such as small size, large FOV (field of view) and high sensitivity, which have…
The smectic C (smC) phase represents a unique class of liquid crystal phases characterised by the layered arrangement of molecules with tilted orientations with respect to layer normals. Building upon the real-valued tensorial smectic A…
Focal conic domains, are defects characteristic of layered liquid crystal phases. Their association can built flowers where petals are the ellipses of the Dupin cyclides involved in these defect. We report here the observation of focal…
We propose a general formalism to characterize orientational frustration of smectic liquid crystals in confinement by interpreting the emerging networks of grain boundaries as objects with a topological charge. In a formal idealization,…
Liquid crystals can self-organize into a layered smectic phase. While the smectic layers are typically straight forming a lamellar pattern in bulk, external confinement may drastically distort the layers due to the boundary conditions…
Polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) composites have long been a focus of study for their unique electro-optical properties which have resulted in various applications such as switchable (transparent/translucent) windows. These…
Rod-like objects at high packing fractions can form smectic phases, where the rods break rotational and translational symmetry by forming lamellae. Smectic defects thereby include both discontinuities in the rod orientational order…
Current methods for fabricating lenses rely on mechanical processing of the lens or mold, such as grinding, machining, and polishing. The complexity of these fabrication processes and the required specialized equipment prohibit rapid…
The ability to manipulate polar entities with multiple external fields opens exciting possibilities for emerging functionalities and novel applications in spin systems, photonics, metamaterials, and soft matter. Liquid crystals (LCs),…
Smectic liquid crystals are materials formed by stacking deformable, fluid layers. Though smectics prefer to have flat, uniformly-spaced layers, boundary conditions can impose curvature on the layers. Since the layer spacing and curvature…
Optical microcavities have emerged as a powerful platform for emulating topological phases challenging to realize in conventional materials, offering precise control over dispersion, light confinement, and interactions. Among them, liquid…
A flux liquid can condense into a smectic crystal in a pure layered superconductors with the magnetic field oriented nearly parallel to the layers. If the smectic order is commensurate with the layering, this crystal is {\sl stable} to…