Dancing Droplets on a Defect Line [Poster]
Liquid crystalline (LC) phases are made up of molecules or other small units that organize into mesoscale assemblies. Their order resembles that of crystalline solids, but since the molecules have some freedom to move position and direction, these assemblies also behave like liquids. Thus, highly birefringent and responsive phases with many defect (or disclination) lines can emerge. These ever fluctuating lines indicate regions of the LC where the position of the molecules disrupt the local rotational symmetry within the phase.
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗