Liquid Crystals Science and Technology

Liquid Crystals (LCs) have been discovered serendipitously in 1888 by the botanist Friedrich Reinitzer. Their discovery sparked a great deal of debate during the first half of 1900 concerning their structural and dynamic properties and even their relationship with living organisms. They remained, however, mostly an academic curiosity until the second half of the last century when their possible application as displays became clear.LC displays now represent a huge share of the display industry and many other applications based on LCs have been proposed and developed. At the same time, the LC science, mostly rooted in chemistry and physics but also touching mathematics, biology and engineering, has progressed significantly with new fields opening, e.g. ionic liquid crystals, polymeric liquid crystals, active matter systems, orienting phases for bio-NMR, LC-based membranes for separation. Moreover, new LC phases have been reported during the last recent decades renewing the scientific discussion on the fundamental properties and phase structure of these fascinating materials. This themed collection highlights a series of papers published in the last two years concerning basic scientific investigations on LCs, from the synthesis of novel materials to structure-property relationships as well as applications in opto-electronic devices, thus attesting the breadth and vitality of the present research on liquid crystals.