Condensed Matter Physics Seminar: Nanoscopic Manipulation and Nanoimaging of Liquid Crystals

Abstract:

Liquid crystals present a remarkable array of fascinating physical phenomena, and are now a >200 billion dollar world-wide industry.  As liquid crystals most often are housed in a closed cell or sit atop a substrate, the treatment of the substrate plays a pivotal role..  For the past fifteen years we have developed and exploited scanning probe microscope techniques to manipulate the liquid crystal’s orientation and order parameter at a surface on length scales down to a few tens of nanometers, and performed optical imaging with volumetric resolution 1000 times better than confocal microscopy.   In this talk I will present an overview of liquid crystals, our experimental techniques at the nanoscale, and a sampling of our results that include phase transition behavior, chiral properties, and creation of controlled arrays of topological defects.

Seminar Organizer: Prof. Sasha Gerber