Liquid Crystal Structure of Supercooled Liquid Gallium and Eutectic Gallium-Indium.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the origin of structural ordering in supercooled liquid gallium (Ga) has been a great scientific quest in the past decades. Here, reflective polarized optical microscopy on Ga sandwiched between glasses treated with rubbed polymers reveals the onset of an anisotropic reflection at 120 °C that increases on cooling and persists down to room temperature or below. The polymer rubbing usually aligns the director of thermotropic liquid crystals (LCs) parallel to the rubbing direction. On the other hand, when Ga is sandwiched between substrates that align conventional LC molecules normal to the surface, the reflection is isotropic, but mechanical shear force induces anisotropic reflection that relaxes in seconds. Such alignment effects and shear-induced realignment are typical to co

SUBMITTER: Yunusa M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11468993 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature