Emergent Phenomena and Functional Materials

Julius Planer and discovery of thermotropic liquid crystal

In 1861, Prof. Julius Planer, at that time a professor at Lviv University, published a note which for the first time detailed the quintessential liquid crystalline features. He synthesized cholesteryl chloride, a material that is broadly known nowadays to form a liquid crystalline phase of cholesteric type upon cooling from the isotropic phase. Almost one and half century ago, Planer observed an unusual optical property: in a certain temperature range, the molten material exhibited a violet color in reflected light and yellow-green color in the transmitted light. The feature is typical of the cholesteric liquid crystal with helicoidal arrangement of molecule, having a submicron pitch that leads to the so-called “selective light reflection".

The note by Planer, originally published in German is now available in English

Also there is a note by Lisetski who reports experimental data on differential scanning calorimetry of the cholesteryl chloride and the spectra of selective light reflection that demonstrate that the optical feature observed by Planer is indeed caused by the cholesteric liquid crystalline phase of cholesteryl chloride.

For more information, contact Andrij Trokhymchuk adt@icmp.lviv.ua

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Julius Planer (1827-1881)


Notiz über das Cholestearin
von Prof. Planer
1861

Program & Abstracts

Detailed program and Book of abstracts

Important Dates

September 20Final program
October 5-7PSSM Workshop

Workshop Poster

Workshop poster

Organizers & Sponsors

Institute for Condensed Matter Physics Lviv City Council
University of Colorado at Boulder Ivan Franko National University of Lviv University of Ljubljana
Kent State University

Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter

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