Table of Contents

Introduction to a special phase of matter

Nature's anisotropic fluids

Calamitic Liquid Crystals - Nematic And Smectic Mesophases

Discotic liquid crystals - nematic and smectic mesophases

Discotic liquid crystals - columnar and nematic mesophases

Polymeric liquid crystals - macromesogens

Chiral liquid crystals - art and science

Lyotropic liquid crystals - anisotropic solutions

Synthesis of liquid crystals - strategies and methods

Identification of liquid crystals

Identification of liquid crystal phases - mesophase characterization

Liquid crystals in electric and magnetic fields - a delicate response

Light and liquid crystals - a panoply of colour

Theoretical insights

Liquid crystal technology

About the Author

Peter J. Collings is Morris L. Clothier Emeritus Professor of Physics at Swarthmore College and Adjunct Professor of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and past Vice-President of the International Liquid Crystal Society. He is the author of Liquid Crystals: Nature’s Delicate Phase of Matter (Princeton University Press, 1990, 2002) and co-author of the first edition of Introduction to Liquid Crystals: Chemistry and Physics (Taylor & Francis, 1997).

John W. Goodby is Emeritus Professor of Materials Chemistry at the University of York, UK. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and past President of the International Liquid Crystal Society. He is the co-author of Smectic Liquid Crystals: Textures and Structures (Leonard Hill, 1984), Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals: Principles, Properties and Applications (Gordon & Breach 1991), and Senior Editor of the Handbook of Liquid Crystals (Wiley-VCH, 2014).