liquid crystal

a liquid having certain crystalline characteristics, esp. different optical properties in different directions when exposed to an electric field.

[1890-95]

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Substance that flows like a liquid but maintains some of the ordered structure characteristic of a crystal.

Some organic substances do not melt directly when heated but instead turn from a crystalline solid to a liquid crystalline state. When heated further, a true liquid is formed. Liquid crystals have unique properties. The structures are easily affected by changes in mechanical stress, electromagnetic fields, temperature, and chemical environment. See also liquid crystal display.

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▪ physics

Introduction

      substance that blends the structures and properties of the normally disparate liquid and crystalline (crystal) solid states. Liquids can flow, for example, while solids cannot, and crystalline solids possess special symmetry properties that liquids lack. Ordinary solids melt into ordinary liquids as the temperature increases—e.g., ice melts into liquid water. Some solids actually melt twice or more as temperature rises. Between the crystalline solid at low temperatures and the ordinary liquid state at high temperatures lies an intermediate state, the liquid crystal. Liquid crystals share with liquids the ability to flow but also display symmetries inherited from crystalline solids. The resulting combination of liquid and solid properties allows important applications of liquid crystals in the displays of such devices as wristwatches, calculators, portable computers, and flat-screen televisions.

Structure and symmetry

Symmetries of solids and liquids

 Crystals exhibit special symmetries when they slide in certain directions or rotate through certain angles. These symmetries can be compared to those encountered when walking in a straight line through empty space. Regardless of the direction or distance of each step, the view remains the same, as there are no landmarks by which to measure one's progress. This is called continuous translational symmetry because all positions look identical. Figure 1A—> illustrates a crystal in two dimensions. Such a crystal lattice breaks the continuous translational symmetry of free space; starting at one molecule there is a finite distance to travel before reaching the next. Some translational symmetry is present, however, because, by moving the proper distance in the proper direction, one is guaranteed to locate additional molecules on repeated excursions. This property is called discrete translational periodicity. The two-dimensional picture of a crystal displays translational periodicity in two independent directions. Real, three-dimensional crystals display translational periodicity in three independent directions.

 Rotational symmetries can be considered in a similar fashion. From one point in empty space, the view is the same regardless of which direction one looks. There is continuous rotational symmetry—namely, the symmetry of a perfect sphere. In the crystal shown in Figure 1A—>, however, the distance to the nearest molecule from any given molecule depends on the direction taken. Furthermore, the molecules themselves may have shapes that are less symmetric than a sphere. A crystal possesses a certain discrete set of angles of rotation that leave the appearance unchanged. The continuous rotational symmetry of empty space is broken, and only a discrete symmetry exists. Broken rotational symmetry influences many important properties of crystals. Their resistance to compression, for example, may vary according to the direction along which one squeezes the crystal. Transparent crystals, such as quartz, may exhibit an optical property known as birefringence (double refraction). When a light ray passes through a birefringent crystal, it is bent, or refracted, at an angle depending on the direction of the light and also its polarization, so that the single ray is broken up into two polarized rays. This is why one sees a double image when looking through such crystals.

  In a liquid such as the one shown in Figure 1D—>, all the molecules sit in random positions with random orientations. This does not mean that there is less symmetry than in the crystal, however. All positions are actually equivalent to one another, and likewise all orientations are equivalent, because in a liquid the molecules are in constant motion. At one instant the molecules in the liquid may occupy the positions and orientations shown in Figure 1D—>, but a moment later the molecules will move to previously empty points in space. Likewise, at one instant a molecule points in one direction, and the next instant it points in another. Liquids share the homogeneity and isotropy of empty space; they have continuous translational and rotational symmetries. No form of matter has greater symmetry.

      As a general rule, molecules solidify into crystal lattices with low symmetry at low temperatures. Both translational and rotational symmetries are discrete. At high temperatures, after melting, liquids have high symmetry. Translational and rotational symmetries are continuous. High temperatures provide molecules with the energy needed for motion. The mobility disorders the crystal and raises its symmetry. Low temperatures limit motion and the possible molecular arrangements. As a result, molecules remain relatively immobile in low-energy, low-symmetry configurations.

Symmetries of liquid crystals

      Liquid crystals, sometimes called mesophases, occupy the middle ground between crystalline solids and ordinary liquids with regard to symmetry, energy, and properties. Not all molecules have liquid crystal phases. Water molecules, for example, melt directly from solid crystalline ice into liquid water. The most widely studied liquid-crystal-forming molecules are elongated, rodlike molecules, rather like grains of rice in shape (but far smaller in size). A popular example is the molecule p-azoxyanisole (PAA):

   Typical liquid crystal structures include the smectic shown in Figure 1B—> and the nematic in Figure 1C—> (this nomenclature, invented in the 1920s by the French scientist Georges Friedel, will be explained below). The smectic phase differs from the solid phase in that translational symmetry is discrete in one direction—the vertical in Figure 1B—>—and continuous in the remaining two. The continuous translational symmetry is horizontal in the figure, because molecule positions are disordered and mobile in this direction. The remaining direction with continuous translational symmetry is not visible, because this figure is only two-dimensional. To envision its three-dimensional structure, imagine the figure extending out of the page.

 In the nematic phase all translational symmetries are continuous. The molecule positions are disordered in all directions. Their orientations are all alike, however, so that the rotational symmetry remains discrete. The orientation of the long axis of a nematic molecule is called its director. In Figure 1C—> the nematic director is vertical.

      It was noted above that, as temperature decreases, matter tends to evolve from highly disordered states with continuous symmetries toward ordered states with discrete symmetries. This can occur through a sequence of symmetry-breaking phase transitions. As a substance in the liquid state is reduced in temperature, rotational symmetry breaking creates the nematic liquid crystal state in which molecules are aligned along a common axis. Their directors are all nearly parallel. At lower temperatures continuous translational symmetries break into discrete symmetries. There are three independent directions for translational symmetry. When continuous translational symmetry is broken along only one direction, the smectic liquid crystal is obtained. At temperatures sufficiently low to break continuous translational symmetry in all directions, the ordinary crystal is formed.

    The mechanism by which liquid crystalline order is favoured can be illustrated through an analogy between molecules and grains of rice. Collisions (collision) of molecules require energy, so the greater the energy, the greater the tolerance for collisions. If rice grains are poured into a pan, they fall at random positions and orientations and tend to jam up against their neighbours. This is similar to the liquid state illustrated in Figure 1D—>. After the pan is shaken to allow the rice grains to readjust their positions, the neighbouring grains tend to line up. The alignment is not perfect across the sample owing to defects, which also can occur in nematic liquid crystals. When all grains align, they have greater freedom to move before hitting a neighbour than they have when they are disordered. This produces the nematic phase, illustrated in Figure 1C—>. The freedom to move is primarily in the direction of molecular alignment, as sideways motion quickly results in collision with a neighbour. Layering the grains, as illustrated in Figure 1B—>, enhances sideways motion. This produces the smectic phase. In the smectic phase some molecules have ample free volume to move in, while others are tightly packed. The lowest-energy arrangement shares the free volume equitably among molecules. Each molecular environment matches all others, and the structure is a crystal like that illustrated in Figure 1A—>.

       Selected phases characteristic of liquid-crystal-forming moleculesThere is a great variety of liquid crystalline structures known in addition to those described so far. The Table (Selected phases characteristic of liquid-crystal-forming molecules) relates some of the chief structures according to their degree and type of order. The smectic-C phase and those listed below it have molecules tilted with respect to the layers. Continuous in-plane rotational symmetry, present within smectic-A layers, is broken in the hexatic-B phase, but a proliferation of dislocations maintains continuous translational symmetry within its layers. A similar relationship holds between smectic-C and smectic-F. Crystal-B and crystal-G have molecular positions on regular crystal lattice sites, with long axes of molecules (directors) aligned, but allow rotation of molecules about their directors. These are the so-called plastic crystals. Many interesting liquid crystal phases are not listed in this table, including the discotic phase, consisting of disk-shaped molecules, and the columnar phases, in which translational symmetry is broken in not one but two spatial directions, leaving liquidlike order only along columns. The degree of order increases from the top to the bottom of the table. In general, phases from the top of the table are expected at high temperatures, and phases from the bottom at low temperatures.

Liquid crystal compounds

      Liquid-crystal-forming compounds are widespread and quite diverse. Soap (soap and detergent) can form a type of smectic known as a lamellar phase, also called neat soap. In this case it is important to recognize that soap molecules have a dual chemical nature. One end of the molecule (the hydrocarbon tail) is attracted to oil, while the other end (the polar head) attaches itself to water. When soap is placed in water, the hydrocarbon tails cluster together, while the polar heads adjoin the water. Small numbers of soap molecules form spherical or rodlike micelles (micelle), which float freely in the water, while concentrated solutions create bilayers, which stack along some direction just like smectic layers. Indeed, the name smectic is derived from the Greek word for soap. The slippery feeling caused by soap reflects the ease with which the layers slide across one another.

      Many biological materials form liquid crystals. Myelin, a fatty material extracted from nerve cells, was the first intensively studied liquid crystal. The tobacco mosaic virus, with its rodlike shape, forms a nematic phase. In cholesterol the nematic phase is modified to a cholesteric phase characterized by continuous rotation of the direction of molecular alignment. An intrinsic twist of the cholesterol molecule, rather like the twist of the threads of a screw, causes this rotation. Since the molecular orientation rotates steadily, there is a characteristic distance after which the orientation repeats itself. This distance is frequently comparable to the wavelength of visible light, so brilliant colour effects result from the diffraction of light by these materials.

      Perhaps the first description of a liquid crystal occurred in the story The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, by Edgar Allan Poe:

I am at a loss to give a distinct idea of the nature of this liquid, and cannot do so without many words. Although it flowed with rapidity in all declivities where common water would do so, yet never, except when falling in a cascade, had it the customary appearance of limpidity. . . . At first sight, and especially in cases where little declivity was found, it bore resemblance, as regards consistency, to a thick infusion of gum Arabic in common water. But this was only the least remarkable of its extraordinary qualities. It was not colourless, nor was it of any one uniform colour—presenting to the eye, as it flowed, every possible shade of purple, like the hues of a changeable silk. . . . Upon collecting a basinful, and allowing it to settle thoroughly, we perceived that the whole mass of liquid was made up of a number of distinct veins, each of a distinct hue; that these veins did not commingle; and that their cohesion was perfect in regard to their own particles among themselves, and imperfect in regard to neighbouring veins. Upon passing the blade of a knife athwart the veins, the water closed over it immediately, as with us, and also, in withdrawing it, all traces of the passage of the knife were instantly obliterated. If, however, the blade was passed down accurately between two veins, a perfect separation was effected, which the power of cohesion did not immediately rectify

      The liquid described in this passage is human blood. In its usual state within the human body, blood is an ordinary disordered isotropic fluid. The disklike shape of red blood cells, however, favours liquid crystallinity at certain concentrations and temperatures.

Optical properties

Effect of liquid crystals on polarized light

      An understanding of the principal technological applications of liquid crystals requires a knowledge of their optical properties. Liquid crystals alter the polarization of light passing through them. Light waves are actually waves in electric and magnetic fields. The direction of the electric field is the polarization of the light wave. A polarizing filter selects a single component of polarized light to pass through while absorbing all other components of incoming waves. If a second polarizing filter is placed above the first but with its polarization axis rotated by 90°, no light can pass through because the polarization passed by the first filter is precisely the polarization blocked by the second filter. When optically active materials, such as liquid crystals, are placed between polarizing filters crossed in this manner, some light may get through, because the intervening material changes the polarization of the light. If the nematic director is not aligned with either of the polarizing filters, polarized light passing through the first filter becomes partially polarized along the nematic director. This component of light in turn possesses a component aligned with the top polarizing filter, so a fraction of the incoming light passes through the entire assembly. The amount of light passing through is largest when the nematic director is positioned at a 45° angle from both filters. The light is fully blocked when the director lies parallel to one filter or the other.

 During the last decades of the 19th century, pioneering investigators of liquid crystals, such as the German physicist Otto Lehmann and the Austrian botanist Friedrich Reinitzer, equipped ordinary microscopes with pairs of polarizing filters to obtain images of nematic and smectic phases. Spatial variation in the alignment of the nematic director causes spatial variation in light intensity. Since the nematic is defined by having all directors nearly parallel to one another, the images arise from defects in the nematic structure. Figure 2—> illustrates a manner in which the directors may rotate or bend around defect lines. The resulting threadlike images inspired the name nematic, which is based on the Greek word for thread. The layered smectic structure causes layering of defects.

 Nonuniformity in director alignment may be induced artificially. The surfaces of a glass container can be coated with a material that, when rubbed in the proper direction, forces the director to lie perpendicular or parallel to the wall adjacent to a nematic liquid crystal. The orientation forced by one wall need not be consistent with that forced by another wall; this situation causes the director orientation to vary in between the walls. The nematic must compromise its preference for all directors to be parallel to one another with the inconsistent orienting forces of the container walls. In doing so, the liquid crystal may take on a twisted alignment across the container (see Figure 3A—>). Electric or magnetic fields provide an alternate means of influencing the orientation of the nematic directors. Molecules may prefer to align so that their director is, say, parallel to an applied electric field.

Use of liquid crystals (liquid crystal display) as optoelectronic displays

 Optical behaviour and orienting fields underlie the important contemporary use of liquid crystals as opto-electronic displays. Consider, for example, the twisted-nematic cell shown in Figure 3A—>. The polarizer surfaces are coated and rubbed so that the nematic will align with the polarizing axis. The two polarizers are crossed, forcing the nematic to rotate between them. The rotation is slow and smooth, assuming a 90° twist across the cell. Light passing through the first polarizer is aligned with the bottom of the nematic layer. As the nematic twists, it rotates the polarization of the light so that, as the light leaves the top of the nematic layer, its polarization is rotated by 90° from that at the bottom. The new polarization is just right for passing through the top filter, and so light travels unhindered through the assembly.

 If an electric field is applied in the direction of light propagation, the liquid crystal directors align with the orienting field, so they are no longer parallel to the light passing though the bottom polarizer (Figure 3B—>). They are no longer capable of rotating this polarization through the 90° needed to allow the light to emerge from the top polarizer. Although this assembly is transparent when no field is applied, it becomes opaque when the field is present. A grid of such assemblies placed side by side may be used to display images. If one turns on the electric field attached to the parts of the grid that lie where the image is to appear, these points will turn black while the remaining points of the grid stay white. The resulting patchwork of dark and light creates the image on the display. In a wristwatch, calculator, or computer these may be simply numbers or letters, and in a television the images may be detailed pictures. Switching the electric fields on or off will cause the picture to move, just as ordinary television pictures display an ever-changing stream of electrically encoded images.

Michael Widom

Additional Reading

Works on solids in general include Lawrence H. Van Vlack, Elements of Materials Science and Engineering, 6th ed. (1989), an elementary textbook; Charles A. Wert and Robb M. Thomson, Physics of Solids, 2nd ed. (1970), an intermediate-level text; Charles Kittel, Introduction to Solid State Physics, 6th ed. (1986), the standard college textbook; Neil W. Ashcroft and N. David Mermin, Solid State Physics (1976), an advanced textbook; George E. Bacon, The Architecture of Solids (1981), an introduction to bonding and structure; and Linus Pauling, The Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals, 3rd ed. (1960, reissued 1989), the classic reference work on chemical bonding.Gerald D. Mahan The history of liquid crystals in particular is surveyed by H. Kelker, “History of Liquid Crystals,” Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, 21(1 and 2):1–48 (May 1973). The Nobel Prize acceptance lecture by P.G. de Gennes, “Soft Matter,” Reviews of Modern Physics, 64(3):645–648 (July 1992), sets liquid crystals in a broader scientific context. Discussions of special topics in liquid crystals, frequently at a level close to this article, may be found in the periodical Condensed Matter News (bimonthly). More technical presentations are given in P.G. de Gennes, The Physics of Liquid Crystals (1974); S. Chandrasekhar, Liquid Crystals, 2nd ed. (1992); and P.S. Pershan, Structure of Liquid Crystal Phases (1988). Applications of liquid crystals are described in E. Kaneko, Liquid Crystal TV Displays (1987); and J. Funfschilling, “Liquid Crystals and Liquid Crystal Displays,” Condensed Matter News, 1:12–16 (1991).Michael Widom

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