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...