We use double-emulsion drops to experimentally investigate the defect structures of spherical shells of nematic liquid crystals. We uncover a rich scenario of coexisting defect structures dictated by the unavoidable finite thickness of even the thinnest shell and by the thickness variation around the sphere. These structures are characterized by a varying number of disclination lines and pairs ...

Liquid crystal containing composite fibres were produced via coaxial electrospinning, demonstrating that this technique can be used for producing new functional fibres and/or to study the impact of extreme confinement on liquid crystal phases.

We analyze the existence and stability of two-component vector solitons in nematic liquid crystals for which one of the components carries angular momentum and describes a vortex beam. We demonstrate that the nonlocal, nonlinear response can dramatically enhance the field coupling leading to the stabilization of the vortex beam when the amplitude of the second beam exceeds some threshold value....

We report on the distribution spectra of the fluctations in the amount of power injected into a liquid crystal undergoing electroconvective flow. The probability distribution functions (PDFs) of the fluc-tuations as well as the magnitude of the fluctuations have been determined in a wide range of imposed stress both for unconfined and confined flow geometries. These spectra are compared to thos...

We measured the physical characteristics of 2-million(2M)and 3-million(3M)color liquid crystal displays(LCD)whose aperture ratio was increased and compared them with conventional models. The results showed the influence of the increased aperture ratio on the physical characteristics of the LCDs. We evaluated resolution by means of modulation transfer function(MTF)and evaluated granularity by me...

We demonstrate two interferometric methods for measuring the thickness of nematic liquid crystal films with a free surface. The accuracy of either method is better than +/-1 %.

We are in this work comparing the efficiencies of various 1H-13C separated local field (SLF) experiments when applied to columnar and nematic liquid crystals. In particular, the performances of the conventional SLF, proton-detected local field (PDLF), and polarization inversion spin exchange at the magic angle (PISEMA) methods in terms of spectral resolution, robustness, and ability to measure ...

Employing a time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau model, we investigate the phase ordering kinetics of nematic liquid crystals confined in a narrow pore. We consider various orientations of the surface field and compute domain growth laws and scaling functions. In the absence of any anchoring field we find that ~and in contrast to a confined binary liquid mixture! mere confinement of the liquid crysta...