Golam Mohiuddin, featured ILCC liquid crystal artist, February 2017

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Golam Mohuddin graduated from Assam University, Silchar (Supervisor: Prof. Nandiraju V S Rao) is continuing his research as a National Postdoctoral Fellow (Mentor: Dr. Santanu K Pal) in Indian Institute of Science education and Research, Mohali. His research interest include molecular engineering of room temperature bent-core mesogens composed of three aromatic rings with special emphasis on local and macroscopic phase biaxiality, ferronematic phase and blue phase.
Contact email: ranju.mohiuddin@gmail.com


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This optical texture of nematic droplet was captured using Nikon Polarising Optical Microscope (Nikon optiphot-2-pol) equipped with Instec STC 200 hot stage and Nikon Digital sight DS-Fi1 digital camera. A four-ring bent-core mesogen with imine—ester—imine linkage sandwiched between unidirectionally rubbed normal glass plate and coverslip, on slow cooling process, from isotropic temperature (145°C) self-assemble at 123.6°C to construct the least ordered colorful nematic droplet texture which is rare in the banana mesogen. The occurrence of the droplet suggests that the rotation along molecular long axis is predominant factor than self-assembling along the bent direction in this banana mesogen are sufficiently apart to rotate freely along lateral axis. The image height is about 500 microns.
Jury comment: These colorful nematic droplets are a good example of the so-called forbidden colors - the combination of green and red on the black background looks beautiful to human eyes. The droplet structure is not just simple as they look, and very implicative.