Handbook of Liquid Crystals-Volume I - Foundations and Fundamental Aspects

This expert and self-contained authored handbook provides comprehensive coverage of liquid crystals from the fundamental materials science, physics, and modeling through cutting-edge applications. Written by an author with over 40 years of active experience in this growing field, it offers an unprecedented self-contained treatment of this key research area.

Liquid Crystals are a state of matter sharing properties that are usually associated with both solids and liquids. Their study belongs to wider field of soft condensed matter physics, an area growing in importance because of the new physics being discovered and the possibilities of various technological applications being developed. Liquid crystals continue to have a revolutionary technological impact and consistently pose new challenges of basic understanding. While the experimental side of liquid crystal research is very well developed, theoretical understanding has lagged, and this volume fills a gap in the published literature in terms of rigorous treatment of mathematical and computer modeling approaches.

Volume I of this handbook deals with the physical foundations and fundamental aspects of liquid crystals, addressing their physical properties, measurement techniques, and various types. Overall, this handbook serves as the ultimate scholarly guide for researchers, scientists, and engineers seeking to unlock the full potential of liquid crystals. It offers a comprehensive understanding of these materials and their diverse applications, empowering readers to navigate the complex intricacies of liquid crystal science and technology.

During his professional career spanning over 45 years, Prof. Shri Singh has made outstanding contributions in teaching and research. He worked at Banaras Hindu University as Lecturer 1975-86, Reader 1986-94 and Professor 1994-2011. In recognition of his long and outstanding services, he was conferred the status of Professor Emeritus by Banaras Hindu University in July 2011. In December 2016, he received the title of Distinguished Professor (Life Long), and he is currently working in this capacity and continues to be very actively involved in teaching and research. He served as Associated Visiting Professor and Visiting Professor at the University of Guelph, Canada in the early 1980s, in addition to numerous other presentations and visits to universities in the USA and Canada.

The main focus of Prof. Singh's research activities has been to develop and apply theoretical methods including computer simulations for the understanding of molecular liquids, liquid crystals, far- infrared absorption spectra in dense fluids, and computer simulations methodology, resulting in many important results for liquid crystals and statistical physics. Among his key achievements is a first principle molecular theory based on the density functional formalism for the elastic properties of molecular ordered phases (liquid crystals, plastic crystals and crystalline solids), which has been implemented for the nematic, smectic A and biaxial nematic phases. One area of Prof. Singh's most sustained activities has been towards understanding the phase stability, orientational ordering, and transition properties of achiral and chiral (ferroelectric and antiferroelectric) liquid crystals. The role of intermolecular interactions and external perturbations (pressure and electric field) on their behavior has been analyzed. His group has also performed computer simulations for the ordering kinetics in nematic liquid crystals, resulting in very crucial information about the domains coarsening.

Prof. Singh's current research activities focus on unexplored problems related to MC/MD simulations for phase ordering dynamics in nematic liquid crystals and phase diagrams and transition properties of liquid crystals, and the structure and properties of FLCs, AFLCs, SSFLCs, bent core, and polymer dispersed liquid crystals. Recently, he has undertaken experimental work in the area of polymer dispersed liquid crystals and liquid crystals in confined geometry, producing very interesting results. His group has also carried out extensive work to address the question how dispersion of non-mesogenic materials (nanomaterials, polymers, dyes, etc.) in host LCs influences the properties of pristine LC and shown that dispersed system is more useful for LC-based devices.