Nazma Begum, featured ILCS liquid crystal artist, February 2022

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Nazma Begum completed her PhD with Professor Nandiraju VS Rao from Assam University, Silchar in the field of investigation on four-ring bent-core liquid crystals. Then she joined Department of Chemical Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, India as a Women Scientist-A (awarded by DST-Govt. of India) with Professor Santanu Kumar Pal. Presently she is involved in teaching.

Contact email: najjchem(at)gmail.com
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The microphotographs of four-ring hockey-stick shaped molecule is taken in ITO coated homogeneously aligned cell of average gap 3.2μm under a Nikon Polarizing Optical Microscope (Nikon optiphot-2-pol) equipped with Instec STC 200 hot stage and Nikon Digital sight DS-Fi1 digital camera. This texture is obtained at 93.6ºC using 20x objective indicates focal conic textures in smectic phase with a growth of distinct different domain. The picture is about 500 micron width.
Jury comment: The picture shows a well-defined focal conic texture of a smectic phase formed by a four-ring hockey-stick shaped molecule, taken in ITO coated homogeneously aligned cell. This picture has been chosen for its aesthetic beauty, definition of the texture and for being representative of one liquid crystal organization of this type con bent-shaped compounds.