Nematic and Cholesteric Liquid Crystals provides a useful reference intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in liquid crystals, condensed matter physics, and materials science.

Features:

• Provides an up-to-date text on nematic and cholesteric liquid crystals
• Includes an extensive analysis of original topics such as cholesteric Blue Phases, anchoring transitions, and front instabilities
• Illustrates material throughout with simple experiments, some of which were performed in the classroom
• Serves as a useful reference/ supplementary text intended for graduate students and researchers in liquid crystals, condensed matter physics, and materials science
• Offers unique coverage of optical properties, thermal, hydrodynamic and electrohydrodynamic instabilities, defects, surface phenomena (anchoring, faceting) and free and directional growth (Mullins-Sekerka instability

Contents

Modern Classification of Liquid Crystals

• The Terminology Introduced by Georges Friedel
• Modern Definition of Mesophases; Broken Symmetries; Short- and Long-Distance Order
• Classification of Smectic Phases
• Classification of Columnar Phases
• Chiral Smectic Phases

Mesogenic anatomy

• Thermotropic Liquid Crystals
• Lyotropic Liquid Crystals
• Liquid Crystal Diblock Copolymers
• Colloidal Liquid Crystals

Structure and Dielectric Properties of the Nematic Phase

• Quadrupolar Order Parameter
• The Uniaxial Nematic-Isotropic Liquid Phase Transition
• The Uniaxial Nematic-Biaxial Nematic Phase Transition
• Low-Frequency Dielectric Properties
• Optical Properties

Nematoelasticity: Frederiks Transition and Light Scattering

• Grupp Experiment
• Frank-Oseen Free Energy
• Free Energy Minimization: Molecular Field and Elastic Torques
• Interpretation of the Grupp Experiment
• Magnetic Field Action
• Action of an Electric Field: Displays
• Elastic Light Scattering and the Determination of the Frank Constants
• Nonlinear Optics
• Calculating the Scattering Cross-Section
• Free Energy Expression in the Fourier Space

Nematodynamics and Flow Instabilities

• Preliminary Observations Illustrating Some Fundamental Differences Between a Nematic and an Ordinary Liquid
• Equations of the Linear Nematodynamics
• Laminary Couette and Poiseuille Flows
• Laminary Flows and Their Stability
• Convective Instabilities of Electrohydrodynamic Origin
• Thermal Instabilities
• "Derivation Under the Integral" Theorem
• Rotational Identity
• Calculation of the Irreversible Entropy Production
• Energy Dissipation and Constitutive Laws in the Formalism of Leslie-Ericksen-Parodi
• The Rayleigh-Bénard Instability in Isotropic Fluids

Defects and Textures in Nematics

• Polarizing Microscope Observations
• The Volterra-de Gennes-Friedel process
• Energy of a Wedge Planar Line in Isotropic Elasticity
• Continuous Core Model: Landau-Ginzburg-de Gennes Free Energy
• Interaction Energy Between Two Parallel Wedge Lines
• Dynamics of a Planar Wedge Line: Calculating the Friction Force
• Wedge line Stability: Escape in the Third Dimension
• Bloch and Ising Walls Induced by the Frederiks Instability

Anchoring and Anchoring Transitions of Nematics on Solid Surfaces

• Precursors
• On the Notion of Interface
• Interface Symmetry and Classification of the Different Types of Anchoring
• Wetting and Anchoring Selection
• Anchoring Transitions
• Measuring the Anchoring Energy in the Homeotropic Case

The nematic-isotropic liquid interface:static properties and directional growth instabilities

• Anchoring Angle, Surface Tension, and Width of the Nematic-Isotropic Interface
• Landau-Ginzburg-de Gennes Theory
• Instabilities in Confined Geometry
• Elastic Correction to the Gibbs-Thomson Relation
• Directional Growth of the Nematic-Isotropic Liquid Front

Cholesterics: the First Example of a Frustrated Mesophase

• Cholesteric Frustration
• Cholesteric Order Parameter and the Cholesteric-Isotropic Liquid Phase Transition
• Optical Properties of the Cholesteric Phase
• Defects and Textures of the Cholesteric Phase
• Unwinding Transition
• Cholesteric Hydrodynamics

Blue Phases: a Second Example of a Frustrated Mesophase

• Experimental Evidence for the Cubic Symmetry of Blue Phases I and II
• Uniaxial Models for the Blue Phases: Disclination Lattices
• Biaxial Model of the Blue Phases by Grebel, Hornreich, and Shtrikman
• Landau Theory of the Blue Phases by Grebel, Hornreich, and Shtrikman
• Experiments
• BPIII or Blue Fog

Overview of Growth Phenomena and _the Mullins-Sekerka Instability

• Gibbs-Thomson Relation and the Phase Diagram of a Diluted Binary Mixture
• The Minimal Model
• Stationary Plane Front
• Plane Front in the Diffusive Regime

Index

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