Report on the 28th International Liquid Crystal Conference 2022 (ILCC 2022)

Abstract

s were submitted from 43 different countries, which is a significant number. Out of a total of 650 abstracts, 280 abstracts were accepted for oral presentations and 348 abstracts were accepted for poster presentations. Two hundred and eighty abstracts for the oral presentation included 6 tutorials, 5 plenary, 58 invited and 2 public lectures. A group photo of all the on-site participants was also taken on the second last day of the conference (Figure 2). Five scientists were invited to give plenary talks. Prof. Sriram Ramaswamy of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, India, opened the technical session with a plenary lecture. He is a powerful orator who discussed the flow, order, defects, fluctuations, and chirality in active LCs (Figure 3, top left). Prof. Maria Blanca Ros of the University of Zaragoza, Spain, delivered the second plenary lecture on strategies for benefiting from the supramolecular interaction of mesogens. The third plenary speaker, Prof. Randall Kamien of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, discussed the significance of topology in LCs. Prof. Robin Selinger of Kent State University in the United States then discussed morphing liquid crystalline polymers using machine learning. The fifth plenary talk was delivered by Prof. Sung Tae Shin from Korea University, Sejong Campus, Korea, on future video displays. In addition, 28 scientists were invited for keynote lectures. The various topics covered during the keynote lectures included twist-bent nematic mesophases, applications of liquid crystalline elastomers, responsive photonic materials, colloidal LCs, blue phases, topological solitons in frustrated chiral nematics, etc. Keynote speaker, Prof. Nicholas L. Abbott of Cornell University in the United States spoke about the dynamical interaction Figure 1. Left: Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Discoveries Monument), Middle: Belém Tower, Right: Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon, Portugal (Photos by Vidhika Punjani). Figure 2. Group photo of the on-site participants at the 28 International Liquid Crystal Conference (ILCC 2022) at NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal (Photo taken by the organizers of ILCC 2022). LIQUID CRYSTALS TODAY 55