本项目以新型的弯曲形液晶为研究对象，通过研究其在不同光场激发下形成非线性周期结构的动力学行为，揭示其独特的微观输运过程；并根据液晶新性质对输运行为的影响，建立弯曲形液晶的输运模型。与传统液晶具有长棒形的刚性分子结构相比，弯曲形液晶具有V型的分子结构以及柔性的分子核，带来很多新的物理性质，包括双轴到单轴向列相的相变、超大的挠曲电效应、反常的弹性各向异性、高电导率、宽蓝相温度以及分子结构的奇偶效应等。这些新效应会显著影响光生载流子在外场下的输运，比如出现电流体效应、液晶输运参数随不同的相态而突变等，从而形成新型的周期结构。我们前期观察到弯曲形液晶能在均匀光强激发下产生周期结构，其形貌由液晶性质和边界条件决定，相反在长棒形液晶中观察不到；还观察到弯曲形液晶在非均匀光强激发下形成周期结构的响应速度要比长棒形液晶快2个量级。因此通过探测特殊的输运行为及其形成的周期结构，能够探索新型液晶的工作机制。

In this project, the static and dynamic behaviors of nonlinear patterns in bent-core nematic (BCN) liquid crystals (LC) are investigated under the excitation of various optical fields, which reveals a different microscopic transport process other than traditional rodlike LC. Due to a peculiar V shape molecular structure and flexible core, BCN LC exhibits a host of specific properties while absent in rodlike LC, such as the phase transition between biaxial and uniaxial nematic phase, giant flexoelectric effect, anomalous anisotropies of elastic constants, Blue Phases with wide temperature range, high conductivity and strong odd-even effect. These new phenomena show noticeable impacts on the transport processes, including the occurrence of electroconvection, and an abrupt change of transport parameters after phase transition, which consequently result in new kinds of patterns. We have preliminarily observed that under the excitation of uniform intensity light, optical-field-induced patterns occur in BCN, with corresponding morphologies determined by the electric transport properties of BCN and boundary conditions. Whereas in rodlike LC, this kind of patterns absent. Moreover, excited by periodic intensity light, BCN demonstrate fast pattern formation and decay processes, of which characterisic time is two orders of magnitude less than that of rodlike LC. It is anticipated that a wealth of pattern phenomena will be observed, and new effects and mechnisms in BCN LC can be well understood by probing the unusual behaviors of transport process.