Industry/University Cooperative Research Activity: Thermal and Optical Properties of Liquid Crystals (Materials Research)

这是一个合作研究项目，其目标是了解液晶相变的基本性质，并开发测量热性质、导热系数和极化的技术。由该小组开发的一种特殊的高分辨率交流热量计将用于测量各种多临界点或相变附近的热容和导热系数。混合物将被用来改变某些相的温度范围，以更好地理解相变的本质以及微观结构，并检验理论。

This is a cooperative research project whose goals are to understand fundamental properties of liquid crystal phase transitions and to develop techniques for measuring thermal properties, thermal conductivity, and polarization. A special high resolution ac calorimeter, developed by this group, will be used to measure heat capacity and thermal conductivity in the vicinity of various multicritical points or phase transitions. Mixtures will be used to vary temperature ranges of certain phases to work toward better understanding of the nature of the phase transitions as well as of the microscopic structures and to test theories.