The photonic band gap of a two-dimensional photonic crystal is continuously tuned using the temperature dependent refractive index of a liquid crystal. Liquid crystal E7 was infiltrated into the air pores of a macroporous silicon photonic crystal with a triangular lattice pitch of 1.58 mm and a band gap wavelength range of 3.3–5.7 mm. After infiltration, the band gap for the H polarized field s...

Monte Carlo simulations of lattice spin models represent a powerful method for the investigation of confined nematic liquid crystals and allow a study of the molecular organization and thermodynamics of these systems. Here some models of confined liquid crystals, such as polymer dispersed liquid crystals, twisted nematic, in-plane switching liquid crystal displays and hybrid aligned films are d...

We demonstrate the suitability of polarization microscopy to study the recently discovered (parallel) nematic-(perpendicular) nematic phase separation. This novel type of phase transition is induced by applying an external magnetic field to a nematic liquid crystal of boardlike colloidal goethite and is due to an interplay between the intrinsic magnetic properties of goethite and the collective...

Molecules of a nematic liquid crystal respond to an applied magnetic field by reorienting themselves in the direction of the field. Since the dielectric anisotropy of a nematic is small, it takes relatively large fields to elicit a significant liquid crystal response. The interaction may be enhanced in colloidal suspensions of ferromagnetic particles in a liquid crystalline matrix— ferronematic...

We optimize the wavelength tuning range of a Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser with an intracavity layer of nematic Liquid Crystal (LC-VCSEL) lasing around 1.3 μm. The tunability is obtained by applying voltage to the liquid crystal layer, which esentially is to vary the refractive index from the extraordinary to the ordinary. We achieve 71.6 nm continuous tuning (without mode hopping) wit...

Thermodynamic properties of liquids under negative pressures are interesting and important in fields of science and technology. Here, phase transitions of a thermotropic liquid crystal are investigated in a range from positive to negative pressures with a metal Berthelot tube using a commercial pressure transducer. Two co-existing lines, namely crystal (Kr) – nematic (N), and isotropic liquid (...

Photoisomerization-induced phase transition of neat liquid-crystalline azobenzene chromophore (LCAC) and its effect on phase diagrams of its mixtures with reactive mesogenic diacrylate monomer (RM257) have been investigated experimentally and theoretically. Upon irradiation with ultraviolet light, the nematic phase of LCAC transformed to isotropic, while the crystal phase showed corrugated text...

Scaled particle theory for a binary mixture of hard discorectangles and for a binary mixture of hard rectangles is used to predict possible liquid-crystal demixing scenarios in two dimensions. Through a bifurcation analysis from the isotropic phase, it is shown that isotropic-nematic demixing is possible in two-dimensional liquid-crystal mixtures composed of hard convex bodies. This bifurcation...

We consider a mathematical model that consists of a nematic liquid crystal layer sandwiched between two parallel bounding plates, across which an external field is applied. We investigate how the number and type of solutions for the director orientation within the layer change as the field strength, anchoring conditions, and material properties of the nematic liquid crystal layer vary. In parti...

We report magnetic field tuning of the structure and Whispering Gallery Mode lasing from ferromagnetic nematic liquid crystal micro-droplets. Microlasers were prepared by dispersing a nematic liquid crystal, containing magnetic nanoparticles and fluorescent dye, in a glycerol-lecithin matrix. The droplets exhibit radial director structure, which shows elastic distortion at a very low external m...