Liquid crystals allow us to perform experiments that provide insight into fundamental problems of modern physics, such as phase transitions, frustration, elasticity, hydrodynamics, defects, growth phenomena, and optics (linear and non linear). This excellent volume meets the need for an up-to-date text on liquid crystals.
Nematic and Cholesteric Liquid Crystals: Concepts and Physical Properties Illustrated by Experiments is a result of personal research and of the graduate lectures given by the authors at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon and the University of Paris VII, respectively....

These volumes are a result of the personal research and graduate lectures given by the authors at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon and the University of Paris VII, respectively. Featuring an easy-to-follow, accessible style, each volume describes important concepts and physical properties using classroom-friendly experiments, many of which the professors used in their own classes, and clear diagrams.

Although Smectic and Columnar Liquid Crystals: Concepts and Physical Properties Illustrated by Experiments can be used as an independent text, it is an ideal and complementary...

Based on graduate lectures given by the authors, Smectic and Columnar Liquid Crystals: Concepts and Physical Properties Illustrated by Experiments examines lamellar (smectic) and columnar liquid crystals, which, in addition to orientational order, possess 1D, 2D or 3D positional order. Topics include rheology and plasticity, ferroelectricity, analogies with superconductors, hexatic order and 2D-melting, equilibrium shapes, facetting, and the Mullins-Sekerka instability, as well as phase transitions in free films and membrane vibrations. Nematic and cholesteric liquid crystals are covered by...

Why is it necessary to strike while the iron is hot? What makes a good liquid crystal display? Why is rubber so elastic? These questions can be answered through rheophysics, using the mechanics of continuous media at the macroscopic scale, and statistical mechanics and the physics of defects at the microscopic level. This book addresses problems involving the flow of matter, covering the main aspects of the mechanical response of fluids and solids to applied stress or strain. It includes the hydrodynamics of ordinary liquids, the elasticity and plasticity of solids, and the rheology of...