Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
Liquid Crystal Phase Transition
2022-10-01
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Rights
- CC BY 4.0, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
About this work
Magnified 100 times, a drop of liquid crystal was dispensed onto a glass plate and a cover slip placed on top. The liquid crystal spreads out into a uniform film under the weight of the cover slip. The image was captured using a microscope configured for crossed polarised light. The colours come about because liquid crystal is birefringent - it changes the polarisation state of the plane-polarised light passing through it. Now, the sort of labyrinthine pattern is caused by a phase transition. The liquid crystal sample is placed on a heat stage and at a particular temperature called the phase transition temperature, the liquid crystal changes from an opaque state to a transparent state, this is the transition front. The image width is about 2mm.
