1st Edition
Nematic and Cholesteric Liquid Crystals Concepts and Physical Properties Illustrated by Experiments
Liquid crystals allow us to perform experiments that provide insight into fundamental problems of modern physics, such as phase transitions, frustration, elasticity, hydrodynamics, defects, growth phenomena, and optics (linear and non linear). This excellent volume meets the need for an up-to-date text on liquid crystals.
Nematic and Cholesteric Liquid Crystals: Concepts and Physical Properties Illustrated by Experiments is a result of personal research and of the graduate lectures given by the authors at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and the University of Paris VII, respectively. The first part of the book presents historical background, the modern classification of liquid crystals, and mesogenic anatomy; the second part examines liquid crystals with nematic and cholesteric orientational order. Topics include dielectric and magnetic properties, Frederiks transitions and displays, light scattering, flow and electrohydrodynamic instabilities, surface anchoring transitions, interfaces, equilibrium shapes, and the Mullins-Sekerka instability. Smectic and columnar liquid crystals are covered in more detail by the authors in a separate volume, entitled Smectic and Columnar Liquid Crystals: Concepts and Physical Properties Illustrated by Experiments.
The presentation is illustrated throughout by simple experiments, some of which were performed in class. Nematic and Cholesteric Liquid Crystals: Concepts and Physical Properties Illustrated by Experiments provides a useful reference intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in liquid crystals, condensed matter physics, and materials science.
Preface to the English edition
Nematic and Cholesteric Liquid Crystals
PART A: OVERVIEW
Some History
Georges Friedel and Liquid Crystals
The Discovery of Birefringence in Fluid Biological Substances by Buffon, Virchow, and Mettenheimer: Lyotropic Liquid Crystals
Observation of the Surprising Behavior of Cholesteryl Esters by Planer and Reinitzer: Thermotropic Liquid Crystals
Fliessende Kristalle or "The Flowing Crystals" of Otto Lehmann
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
PART B: MESOPHASES WITH AN ORIENTATIONAL ORDER
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
Appendix 1: Calculating the Scattering Cross-Section
Appendix 2: 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
Appendix 1: "Derivation Under the Integral" Theorem
Appendix 2: Rotational Identity
Appendix 3: Calculation of the Irreversible Entropy Production
Appendix 4: Energy Dissipation and Constitutive Laws in the Formalism of Leslie-Ericksen-Parodi
Appendix 5: 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 (£G
Biography
Patrick Oswald, Pawel Pieranski, John W. Goodby and George W. Gray
"…authoritative and detailed…one notices the importance given to topics that have only received limited coverage elsewhere in the literature, such as surface phenomena (anchoring, faceting) and the dynamics of growth or deformation."
- Jacques Friedel, Académie des Sciences, Paris, France"Oswald and Pieranski have written a book that should be in every scientific library and on many researchers' shelves. Both the experienced worker and the novice research student should find it extremely useful, both for its explanations of the basic principles and its elaboration of numerous subtleties."
– Peter J. Collings, Swarthmore College, in Liquid Crystals Today, 2008, Vol. 17, No 1 & 2
