Inside view

What is the physics behind liquid crystals? Liquid Crystals (LC) are a group of organic molecules that show a set of peculiar properties [1]. One property is that an LC molecule´s polarisability depends on its orientation with respect to the electric (or magnetic) fi eld. This is not unusual in many crystals (also organic crystals) where you fi nd anisotropic optical or microwave properties. For liquids, however, this is unique as they are usually isotropic. Due to strong interactions between the molecules, LCs exhibit a set of liquid phases: isotropic and nematic, to mention only two. Their properties were described by de Gennes