ILCS

Golam Mohiuddin, currently working as a postdoctoral fellow in Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali [IISER] with Dr. Santanu K Pal, graduated from the Department of Chemistry, Assam University, Silchar under Prof. Nandiraju V.S Rao. He obtained his B.Sc (2007) and M.Sc (2009) degrees from the Bolpur College, West Bengal, India and Assam University, Silchar, India, respectively.

His research objective is mainly focusing on: first, to the synthesis of room temperature bent-core mesogens which should preferably be fluid in normal in room temperature rather solid amorphous type; second, to investigate the structure-property relationship using density functional calculations (DFT) for this room temperature fluidic bent-core Mesogens and third, design and preparation of bent-core materials to show blue phase.

Email: golammohiuddin@iisermohali.ac.in
ranju.mohiuddin@gmail.com

This texture is of a bent-core liquid crystal containing three phenyl ring attached by linking group. The most important factor is that the texture is captured at room temperature and in normal glass plate. The picture was taken on Nikon Eclipse LV100POL polarising microscope with a Linkam heating stage (LTS 420) using a Q-imaging camera and 10X objective. The sample was sandwiched between normal glass slide and cover-slip and the nucleation of layering was observed on slow cooling from the isotropic phase at 23.5°C. The width of image is about 500 µm.
Jury comment: The image was selected because of its interesting interplay between color and depth of field of the “step-like” texture.