Sarthok Sircar, University of South Carolina


New phases in Biaxial Liquid Crystal Polymers


Abstract: In 2004, a new "biaxial phase" of liquid crystalline polymers was discovered experimentally. Since then, a lot of effort has been devoted at the experimental level to understand the orientational response of such a system in the presence of an external field. It was quickly realized that the response of such an elusive system is difficult to predict experimentally and require extreme conditions of temperature, pressure and high electric/magnetic fields. To our knowledge, for the first time, we predict and present the various phases of biaxial LCPs and show the sequence of orientations in the material parameter region. The underlying hydrodynamic theory; as well as; the rheological properties are also discussed.

Advisor: Prof. Qi Wang (USC)