Liquid Crystal Elastomers

by Mark Warner, Eugene Michael Terentjev

Overview

Liquid crystals are fluids with directionality defined. Polymers are long molecules with a shape that can be changed. As a network, polymers form rubber-a soft solid that is locally liquid-like and capable of huge extension. Liquid crystal elastomers area combination of all these curious aspects, but with additional, revolutionary new phenomena-for example, spontaneous shape changes of several hundred percent induced by temperature change, with equally large opto-mechanical responses, shape change without energy cost (Soft elasticity), color change with strain, lasing and photonics, sensitivity to molecular handedness and soft solid ferroelectricity. This book is a primer for liquid crystals, polymers, rubber and elasticity. It then describes the theory and experiment of these remarkable materials for the first time as a monograph. Worked examples are solved so that the reader can become proficient in the field himself. The book is directed at physicists, chemists, material scientists, engineers and applied mathematicians at the graduate level and beyond.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199214860
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/31/2007
Series:	International Series of Monographs on Physics , #120
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Mark Warner is a professor at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, and has been awarded various prizes: IoP Maxwell Medal (1989), IoP Award for Public Awareness of Science (1999) and A.von Humboldt Prize (2000). Eugene Terentjev is a Reader in Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge.

Table of Contents

1. A bird's eye view of liquid crystal elastomers2. Liquid crystals3. Polymers, elastomers and rubber elasticity4. Classical elasticity5. Nematic elastomers6. Nematic rubber elasticity7. Soft elasticity8. Distortions of nematic elastomers9. Cholesteric elastomers10. Continuum description of nematic elastomers11. Dynamics of liquid crystal elastomers12. Smectic elastomers13. Continuum description of smectic elastomersReferencesIndexAuthor IndexONLINE APPENDICESA. Nematic order in elastomers under strainB. Biaxial soft elasticityC. Stripe microstructureD. Couple-stress and Cosserat elasticityE. Expansion at small deformations and rotationsF. Smectic C soft elasticity