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posted by martyb on Sunday June 14 2020, @04:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-happens-when-you-freeze-or-boil-it? dept.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2020/06/10/after-century-searching-scientists-find-new-liquid-phase

Researchers at CU Boulder’s Soft Materials Research Center (SMRC) have discovered an elusive phase of matter, first proposed more than 100 years ago and sought after ever since.

The team describes the discovery of what scientists call a “ferroelectric nematic” phase of liquid crystal in a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery "opens a door to a new universe of materials," said co-author Matt Glaser, a professor in the Department of Physics.

[...] The researchers ran more tests and discovered that this phase of RM734 was 100 to 1,000 times more responsive to electric fields than the usual nematic liquid crystals. This suggested that the molecules that make up the liquid crystal demonstrated strong polar order.

“When the molecules are all pointing to the left, and they all see a field that says, ‘go right,’ the response is dramatic,” Clark said.

[...] When the researchers examined how well aligned the molecules were inside a single domain, “we were stunned by the result,” MacLennan said. The molecules were nearly all pointing in the same direction.

Journal Reference:
Xi Chen, Eva Korblova, Dengpan Dong, et al. First-principles experimental demonstration of ferroelectricity in a thermotropic nematic liquid crystal: Polar domains and striking electro-optics [open], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2002290117)


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @05:02PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @05:02PM (#1007836)

    The discovery "opens a door to a new universe of materials,"

    The discovery "opens a door to a new universe of materials, that our great American corporations can choke innocent animals (including human children) to death with!"

    j/k i'm sure the world's corps will be responsible stewards of the earth this time around.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @12:11AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @12:11AM (#1007942)

    Of course they will, as soon as the meatbags that run them do so. Its a people problem - you can get rid of them but the other meatbags that take over will just be as bad if not worse. Maybe you get a benevolent one now and then but those are exceptions.