Liquid Crystals (LCs) at Various Wavelengths of Light

液晶在平板显示器等日常设备中随处可见。它们首先被引入手表显示器，在赫尔发明的向列材料为实际应用提供了第一个合适的稳定材料。因此，英国的科学基地（赫尔、BDH和RSRE）是当今庞大显示产业发展的幕后推手。自从手表显示器在20世纪70年代商业化以来，液晶显示器在物理尺寸和市场份额方面都变得越来越大。《化学与工程新闻》最近指出，到2009年，液晶显示器的年销售量将超过5500万台，而现在世界上有多少人就有多少液晶显示器。约克大学的新液晶组汇集了专家，以开发液晶的特性，但在可见光范围外的不同波长的光，例如在紫外线，红外线和太赫兹范围内。我们的目标是开发可以在这些范围内工作的液晶，以便制造新型开关，光调制器和门的原型。我们相信这些设备将在安全、传感器、电信等领域得到应用。

Liquid crystals are found in every day devices such as flat panel displays. They were first introduced in watch displays, and the nematic materials which were invented in Hull provided the first suitable stable materials for practical applications. Thus the UK science base (Hull, BDH and RSRE) were behind the development of today's enormous display industry. Since the watch displays were commercialised in the 1970's, LCDs have grown bigger both in terms of physical size and market share. Chemical and Engineering News recently indicated the market would reach over 55m displays per annum by 2009, and now there are as many LCDs in the world as there are people. The new liquid crystal grouping at York has brought experts together with a view to exploiting the properties of liquid crystals, but at various wavelengths of light outside the visible range, for example in the ultra-violet, infra-red and terahertz ranges. Our objective is to develop liquid crystals that can operate in these ranges, so that prototype novel switches, light modulators and gates can be made. Such devices we believe will have applications in the fields of security, sensors, telecommunications etc.