Report of the British Liquid Crystal Society annual meeting, The University of Leeds, 15th – 17th April 2019

Abstract

The 35 annual meeting of the British Liquid Crystal Society (BLCS) took place at the University of Leeds (Figure 1, top) from Monday 15 April to Wednesday 17 April 2019. The conference was organised by Dr Mamatha Nagaraj and Professor Cliff Jones (Figure 1, bottom) from the Leeds Soft Matter Physics group, who welcomed nearly one hundred attendees from countries across the Globe, including USA, India, Pakistan, China, Czech Republic and Germany. This year’s BLCS conference was unique as a special Symposium on lyotropic liquid crystals (L3C) was held prior to the start of the conference. The Symposium was organised by Mariam Hussain, a final year PhD student from the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Leeds. Mariam’s goal was to attract a broader range of attendees to the BLCS conference, especially those working in the field of lyotropic liquid crystals. In addition, attendees of the Symposium would gain a detailed understanding of lyotropic liquid crystals, as a greater emphasis is often placed on thermotropic liquid crystal research. In this respect, the Symposium was a success, since it encouraged interactions between those working in thermotropics and lyotropics, and was evident from both the high attendance and the number of lyotropic-based presentations at the main conference. The Symposium featured a series of lectures given by leading researchers in the field of lyotropics. Professor Gordon Tiddy from the University of Manchester opened the Symposium with a lecture that introduced the fundamentals of lyotropic liquid crystals and the self-assembling supramolecular structures they form, placing an emphasis on surfactants. Further, Dr Arwen Tyler (University of Leeds), Professor John Seddon (Imperial College London) and Professor Mark Wilson (Durham University) presented the fascinating science behind the phases, theoretical simulations and applications of lyotropic liquid crystals. Finally, Dr John Lydon from the University of Leeds closed the Symposium with a presentation on tactoids and their occurrence in colloidal lyotropic sols and, in particular, their relationship to the shape of red blood corpuscles. The Symposium was followed by lunch, whereby further discussions and networking between participants took place (Figure 2). The BLCS conference began on Monday afternoon after the L3C Symposium, whereby all attendees were warmly welcomed by Cliff and Mamatha. Cliff pointed out that the conference was exactly 51 years to the day since Leeds hosted a special meeting of the Faraday Society on Liquid Crystals, where (later, Sir) Charles Frank was to present his ground-breaking paper on elasticity and defects in liquid crystals. Research topics being presented at the current conference were across all disciplines: from colloids, lyotropics and materials, to theory and devices. The oral presentation sessions were opened with the plenary lecture by Professor Ivan Smalyukh from the University of Colorado Boulder, USA, titled ‘Nematic colloidal crystals and micro-motors powered by light’. Monday’s session on the theme of ‘Novel Compounds’ featured a series of engaging talks focussed on the twistbend nematic phase. The first was by Professor Corrie Imrie from the University of Aberdeen, Winner of the 2019 Grey Medal. The Grey Medal is awarded for outstanding contributions to research in liquid crystal science and technology, and was first awarded in 1996 to George Grey’s former PhD student Professor John Goodby. Corrie’s presentation ‘Liquid crystal dimers: from the intercalated smectic phases to the twist-bend nematic and smectic phases’ was highly informative and explained the background of these phases in detail. Richard Mandle from the University of York also gave an invited talk on the discovery ofmaterials exhibiting a splay nematic phase. The Tuesday sessions began with two special talks. The first was by Professor Dirk Broer from Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands, on the topic of reactive mesogens and their applications and further developments. Dirk was awarded the 2018 Grey Medal at this year’s conference, as he was unable to attend last year’s conference at the University of Manchester. Following Dirk’s talk, postdoctoral researcher Dr Markus Wahle (Figure 3, left) from Cliff Jones’s group at the University of Leeds, and Winner of the 2019 BLCS Young Scientist Award, presented his research on optical devices based on liquid crystals. The hour-long poster sessions (Figure 4) were held on the evenings of Monday and Tuesday, prior to dinner. The sessions featured 28 posters, including those presented by several undergraduate students – Nick Garner from LIQUID CRYSTALS TODAY 2019, VOL. 28, NO. 2, 48–53 https://doi.org/10.1080/1358314X.2019.1654108