Featured Liquid Crystal Picture Art of the Month

March 2019

©Yuan Shen

"The Spring Festival"

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Description

The image shows a transmission polarizing microscopic Schlieren texture at a magnification of x40. The sample was prepared by depositing a thin film of glycerol on a glass slide and adding a small droplet of nematic 5CB on top, without the use of any cover slip. The nematic liquid crystal film is thus subjected to the planar boundary conditions of the glycerol-LC interface on the one side, and the homeotropic LC-air interface on the other. The sample was observed at room temperature.

Author

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Yuan Shen got his master degree in the School of Electronic Science and Technology of Xiamen University, China and now he is a PhD student in the group of Ingo Dierking at the School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Manchester, UK. He is a joined University of Manchester / Chinese Scholarship Council funded 1st year student working on the general topic of liquid crystal – nanoparticle dispersions.

Personal webpage on Google Scholar
Email: yuan.shen@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

Jury comment

This picture beautifully illustrates how complex the alignment of liquid crystal director can be on a simple isotropic fluid such as glycerol.
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