This award to Kent State University by the Solid State Chemistry program in the Division of Materials Research is to establish a Liquid Crystal Facility for research in a new class of liquid crystal materials, namely liquid crystal elastomers (CLE) and liquid crystal gels (CLG). These novel materials are soft and solid rubbers with orientationally ordered constituents with coupling between orientational order and mechanical strain. This coupling of orientation with mechanical strain would allow the softness of liquid crystalline materials to be experienced and exploited in exciting new ways such as creation of 'rubber lasers' which would change color on stretching, while shining light on LCE samples can cause them "to bend, fold, and swim away from the light." The unparalleled responsivity of these materials has almost universal appeal, and there is enormous demand for samples even in the applied mathematics community. The planned facility will focus on producing LCEs and LCGs, their characterization, and distribution of these materials to interested scientists in academia, governmental labs and industry.
The establishment of a center of excellence with international leadership in Liquid Crystal Facility would be building on existing strengths, and would provide an important bridge between the scientists who are synthesizing materials and who are studying and using these materials for devices and applications. Training graduate students and scientists in this area will add significantly to the work force in the area of liquid crystalline elastomers and gels. The Center will establish a strong cadre of workers in the US studying and developing these materials, something that is absent now. In addition, graduate students would accumulate training as a spin-off of working on samples so that the techniques can be more widely distributed in the US, both to academia and to industry.
