Liquid crystals? future very exciting

"FUTURE OF Liquid Crystal materials is very exciting and they would have tremendous applications in near future. The extensive research in the field will demystify the liquid crystals and help in developing more advanced equipment."

"FUTURE OF Liquid Crystal materials is very exciting and they would have tremendous applications in near future. The extensive research in the field will demystify the liquid crystals and help in developing more advanced equipment."

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This was stated by Prof R Dabrowski from Military University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland, at the inaugural session of one-day International Seminar on ‘Liquid Crystals : Synthesis and Characterisation’ organised by Department of Physics, Allahabad University (AU) on Wednesday.

Prof Dabrowski said that the Liquid Crystals are substances that exhibit a phase of matter that has properties between those of a conventional liquid, and those of a solid crystal. He said that Liquid Crystals find wide use in liquid crystal displays (LCD), which rely on the optical properties of certain liquid crystalline molecules in the presence or absence of an electric field. Colour LCD systems use colour filters to generate red, green, and blue pixels and similar principles can be used to make other liquid crystal based optical devices. The present applications of Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), Organic Light Display, Plasma TV, Light Emitted Organic Diodes and several other uses. Prof Dabrowski enumerated the academic works in the field going on in European universities and praised the part played by Indian scientists in the field.

Guest of honour Prof SL Srivastava presented details of dielectric measurement facilities available at AU and said that it's a challenge before the physicists to understand the theory of liquid crystals. He urged the young researchers to take advantage of the 'state of the art' facilities available at AU and enrich their knowledge through interactions with national and international scholars visiting the varsity. Special guest of honour Prof Suresh Chandra emphasised on the use of liquid crystals in biological and chemical systems. AU Vice-Chancellor Prof RG Harshe praised the initiatives taken by the department and said that he looks forward for Memorandum of Understanding between the two universities. He felicitated Prof Dabrowski by presenting a shawl.

Earlier the programme started with lighting of lamps by the guests. Head of Physics Department Prof Hari Prakash presided over the inaugural session while convenor of the seminar Prof VK Agarwal proposed the vote of thanks. Dr Ravindra Dhar of Ewing Christian College conducted the proceedings. Later, Prof Dabrowski discussed about synthesis of a new class of liquid crystal material "Low Birefringence Liquid Crystal Materials" which are used in making liquid crystal fibres.

Prof S Singh from BHU dwelt on theoretical aspects of various liquid materials while Dr M Tykaraska from Military University of Technology, Warsaw, delivered a talk on liquid crystal mixtures and its uses. Dr MB Pandey from AU discussed the relaxation processes in anti-ferroelectric liquid crystal materials, which are supposed to be the future matter in display devices. Dr Dhar of ECC discussed about " Twist Grain Boundary Phases and Electro-optical properties of Anti-ferroelecric liquid crystals".