Liquid Crystalline Systems

Our group is part of the Liquid Crystal MRSEC based at the University of Colorado. This project involves development and implementation of simulation models that, in tight collaboration with experimental investigations, provides a molecular level understanding of the important forces which are responsible for control of the self-assembly and ordering observed in liquid crystalline materials. Using an in-house developed, state-of-the-art suite of modeling tools and highly accurate force fields, we investigate the following:

a) Understanding of the influence of polarization effects on prediction of phase behavior in bulk liquid crystals.
b) Relation between structural, conformational, and dynamic properties of ionic liquid crystals.
c) Factors which influence the orientation and phase stabilization of liquid crystalline phases at interfaces (water, surfactant/water, vacuum)
d) Relaxation mechanisms in self-assembled monolayers of liquid crystalline mesogens.
e) Evolution of complex (chiral) mesoscopic ordering from a simpler (achiral) precursor molecule.