We describe and analyze laser trapping of small colloidal particles in a nematic liquid crystal, where the index of refraction of colloids is smaller compared to the indices of the liquid crystal. Two mechanisms are identified that are responsible for this anomalous trapping: (i) surface-induced distortion of the birefringent media around the particle, creating a high-index ”cloud” around the c...

Extending a molecular field model for the orientational order in the nematic phase, we calculate the (2)H-NMR splittings for the achiral solute 8CB-d2 in the twist-bend nematic phase formed by the achiral liquid crystal dimer CB7CB. We give an explanation for the enantiotopic discrimination observed in the spectra and comparison with experimental data allows us to provide quantitative estimates...

We demonstrate that when an optically birefringent nematic liquid crystal is infiltrated into the void regions of an inverse opal, photonic-band-gap (PBG) material, the resulting composite material exhibits a completely tunable PBG. In particular, the three-dimensional PBG can be completely opened or closed by applying an electric field which rotates the axis of the nematic molecules relative t...

The evidence for a « jacketed » structure at the scale of the chain dimensions m the nematic phase of a « side-on fixed liquid crystal polysiloxane is reported by

By molecular modeling we demonstrate that the nematic long-range order discovered in bent-core liquid-crystal systems should reveal further spatially homogeneous phases. Two of them are identified as a tetrahedratic nematic (N_{T}) phase with D_{2d} symmetry and a chiral tetrahedratic nematic (N_{T};{ *}) phase with D2 symmetry. These phases were found for a lattice model with quadrupolar and o...

We present a molecular dynamics study of reentrant nematic phases using the Gay-Berne-Kihara model of a liquid crystal in nanoconfinement. At densities above those characteristic of smectic A phases, reentrant nematic phases form that are characterized by a large value of the nematic order parameter S≃1. Along the nematic director these "supernematic" phases exhibit a remarkably high self-diffu...

The impact of magnetic nanoparticles with different surface coating upon the isotropic-to-nematic and nematic-to-smectic- A phase transitions of the liquid crystal octylcyanobiphenyl is explored by means of high-resolution adiabatic scanning calorimetry. A shrinkage of the nematic range is observed, which is strongly dependent on the surface coating of the nanoparticles. The isotropic-to-nemati...

Liquid Crystals have many applications in photonics, but often the geometrical properties of the photonic structures give problems for controlling the alignment of the liquid crystal. We demonstrate the effect on the orientation of a nematic liquid crystal by structures etched in Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) wafers, produced by photolithography. We characterize the alignment effect of several pat...

We report flexoelectric liquid crystal displays based on polymer-stabilized cholesteric liquid crystals with both uniform lying helix (PSULH) and vertical standing helix (PSVSH) modes. A method to enhance the flexoelectric switching of the CLC mixture is achieved by mixing nematic liquid crystal (NLC) constituents with the addition of a giant flexoelastic coefficient bimesogenic LC dimer into a...