Heinrich Matthias, featured ILCC liquid crystal artist, April 2010
Dr. Heinrich Matthias is a graduate of the University of Paderborn, Germany. He is currently an academic high school teacher. Being both a very skilled experimentalist and computer expert, he has finished his dissertation on “Numerical simulation and experimental investigation of liquid crystal director fields” in 2008 and his diploma thesis on “Artificial neural network for predicting liquid crystal properties” in 2001 in Heinz Kitzerow’s group.
Matthias’ image obtained by fluorescence confocal polarizing microscopy shows microrods of a cholesteric polymer, which have been fabricated using a photonic crystal made of macroporous silicon as a template. For details, see:
[1] H. Matthias, S. L. Schweizer, R. B. Wehrspohn, and H.-S. Kitzerow: “Liquid crystal director fields in micropores of photonic crystals”, J. Opt. A: Pure Appl. Opt. 9, 389 (2007).
[2] H.-S. Kitzerow, A. Lorenz, and H. Matthias: “Tuneable photonic crystals obtained by liquid crystal infiltration”, Phys. Stat. Sol. (a) 204 (11), 3754 (2007).
[2] H.-S. Kitzerow, A. Lorenz, and H. Matthias: “Tuneable photonic crystals obtained by liquid crystal infiltration”, Phys. Stat. Sol. (a) 204 (11), 3754 (2007).
Jury comment: This picture was selected because of the beautiful way in which the chirality of the system is reflected in the microrods.
