{"589829":{"#nid":"589829","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Surprising twist in confined liquid crystals","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have found a material used for decades to color food items ranging from corn chips to ice creams could potentially have uses far beyond food dyes.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIn a study published March 23 in the journal \u003Cem\u003EProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences\u003C\/em\u003E, the researchers described how a class of water soluble liquid crystals, called lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals, exhibited unexpected characteristics that could be harnessed for use in sensors and other potential applications.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026quot;We were seeking to understand the aggregation and phase behavior of these plank-like molecules as a function of temperature and concentration,\u0026quot; said Karthik Nayani, a former Georgia Tech student who worked on the problem. \u0026quot;When observed under crossed polarizers in an optical microscope, liquid crystals can exhibit beautiful textures that hint toward how the molecules themselves are arranged.\u0026quot;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ETo answer some fundamental questions pertaining to the material\u0026rsquo;s phase behavior, the researchers used the microscopes to observe the molecules\u0026rsquo; textures when they were confined to droplets known as tactoids.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026quot;Surprisingly, we found a configuration that hasn\u0026rsquo;t been seen before in the 70 years that people have been studying liquid crystals,\u0026quot; said Mohan Srinivasarao, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering. \u0026quot;Historically, liquid crystals in tactoids conform to what is known as a bipolar and a bipolar configuration with a twist. At lower concentrations, we found that these liquid crystals arrange in a concentric fashion, but one that appears to be free of a singular defect.\u0026quot;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.rh.gatech.edu\/news\/589256\/surprising-twist-confined-liquid-crystals-simple-route-developing-new-sensors\u0022\u003ERead the entire article here\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"A simple route to developing new sensors"}],"field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A simple route to developing new sensors"}],"uid":"28159","created_gmt":"2017-04-05 17:53:07","changed_gmt":"2017-04-05 17:53:07","author":"Kelly Smith","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2017-04-05T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2017-04-05T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"589259":{"id":"589259","type":"image","title":"Liquid crystal tactoid droplets","body":null,"created":"1490377207","gmt_created":"2017-03-24 17:40:07","changed":"1490377207","gmt_changed":"2017-03-24 17:40:07","alt":"","file":{"fid":"224514","name":"tactoidscrop.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tactoidscrop.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tactoidscrop.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":182475,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/tactoidscrop.jpg?itok=o-Tpt5I2"}}},"media_ids":["589259"],"groups":[{"id":"217141","name":"Georgia Tech Materials Institute"},{"id":"372221","name":"Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39471","name":"Materials"},{"id":"39491","name":"Renewable Bioproducts"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJosh Brown\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["josh.brown@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}