Brandon Miller with Rolfe Petschek

Liquid Crystal Alignment Properties

Alignment of liquid crystals is essential to a variety of devices and materials properties.  First order phase transitions to highly ordered phases (such as the first order phase transition from the nematic to smectic C phase) often result in poor alignment.  This project will examine theoretically and experimentally the possibility that regular, ordered nucleation sites for the more ordered phase will allow for formation of well-aligned liquid crystal phases.  This work is expected to consist first of understanding nucleation theory and then hypothesizing theoretically the nature of the nucleation droplet for the smectic C phase in a nematic liquid crystal.   The possibility of using photolithography or locally varying rubbing to promote such nucleation sites and so to promote uniform alignment of the liquid crystal will then be studied theoretically and experimentally.  The experimental work will be done in Chuck Rosenblatt’s lab under the supervision of Rolfe Petschek.