RUI: Optical Activity and Light Scattering in High Chiral Liquid Crystals

本项目的目的是调查 手性对液晶相变的影响 光学活性和光散射测量。 先前 研究表明，高手性具有显著的 对各向同性到液晶相变的影响， 增加了过渡期前效应的复杂性， 削弱了转型本身。 该项目旨在扩大 这项工作通过（1）进行类似的光学活性实验 在不同的液晶系统中，包括在 在各向同性相和蓝相中较低的手性，（2） 利用光散射作为一种新的探测复杂 在跃迁附近发生的涨落现象， 手性相，（3）研究了三种液晶， 手性体系中的液晶转变（近晶A -近晶 C*、手性近晶A和手性近晶C*）。 同样的技术用于研究液晶的各向同性 过渡应该揭示新的信息的影响 手性对这些相变的影响

The objective of this project is to investigate the influence of chirality on phase transitions in liquid crystals through the use of optical activity and light scattering measurements. Previous work has demonstrated that high chirality has a significant effect on the isotropic to liquid crystal phase transition, both increasing the complexity of the pretransitional effects and weakening the transition itself. The project seeks to extend this work by (1) performing similar optical activity experiments in a different liquid crystal system, including measurements at lower chirality in both the isotropic and blue phases, (2) utilizing light scattering as a new probe into the complex fluctuation phenomena which take place near transitons involving chiral phases, and (3) investigating three liquid crystal to liquid crystal transtions in chiral systems (smectic A - smectic C*, chiral nematic - smectic A, and chiral nematic - smectic C*). The same techniques used to study the isotropic to liquid crystal transition should reveal new information about the effect of chirality on these phase transitions.