About the Liquid Crystal Group
The nucleation of the Group began in January when Professor John Goodby, Dr Isabel Saez and ten younger members of the internationally acclaimed Hull Liquid Crystal Group (as noted by the 2000 Chemistry RAE Panel) moved to York University, with a view to creating a new multidisciplinary team with a wider remit for research into self-organising systems. Subsequently, Dr Martin Bates, an expert in chemical theory and computer simulations of liquid crystals, joined the Group from the University of Southampton. Dr Avtar Matharu, an expert in chemical synthesis of mesomorphic materials and polymers arrived in July with a team of three. Professor Duncan Bruce, an internationally renowned expert in inorganic liquid crystals, arrived in August from Exeter with a team of six. In addition, Professor Peter Raynes FRS, from Oxford University Engineering Department, spent a sabbatical period with the Group in September 2005, and Professor Gordon Stewart, former Public Analyst of Glasgow City and internationally recognised microbiologist is a visiting fellow to the Group. Thus the research team created at York could be considered as truly internationally leading in the field. Overall the Group has published in excess of 200 papers over the last 5 years, and given in excess of 120 research lectures, of which 55 were plenary or invited lectures at international conferences.
New, and future, materials research in LCs will be focused on a variety of topics, which reflect our ability to control self-organising, self-assembling and micro-segregating processes. The materials themselves will be “property designed” with smart and often with multifunctional characteristics. Their applications will be wide-spread and soley confined to displays, eg, in light modulators and gates for photonics and telecommunications switches, microdisplays with high definition television the size of a fingernail, high yield strength polymers based on natural polymers such as spider silk, artificial muscle, thermal, chemical and electrical sensors, security devices, smart cards, smart labels, drug delivery systems, gene therapy etc. Anticipating growth in such applications, we believe it is important to maintain the UK research base at the cutting edge in this important and rapidly emerging area of research, which has now become much more than just displays, ie it is now considered as a separate Fourth State of Matter.
The additive value of the Group at York, due to its cross- and multi-disciplinary nature, makes it uniquely placed to carry forward the adventurous, creative element required to generate materials of the future - materials that will self-organise to provide systems with unique and/or enhanced physical properties that are suitable for a range of applications. The team of synthetic chemists assembled has the ability to create designer materials – from low molecular weight organics, to inorganic complexes, to inorganic-organic hybrids and nano-particles, to dendrimers and polymers, and now we are also gaining the techniques necessary to determine their physical characteristics and structures.
A strategic plan for the development of research activities at York has been formulated. As noted above, our vision extends beyond working with liquid crystal systems with applications just targeted at the visible part of the spectrum. We also propose to work at frequencies associated with the UV, IR, microwave and radar regimes. This work will be supported by materials development, not only in low molar mass materials, but also in complex systems. The applications will include gating of visible light, imaging, sensing, encryption, security and high-end data storage systems. Thus, we propose to work at wider frequencies across the electromagnetic spectrum, and to utilise a wider range of materials properties and structures, than we have ever done so before.