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Ukrainian Liquid Crystal Net is an informal
unity of internationally recognized scientists, which are able to
work closely with businesses internationally to provide flexible,
tailored solutions for LC applications. The net includes members of
the Department of Crystals of the Institute of Physics (Prof. Reznikov,
etc) and comprising actively working people from Kiev Taras Shevchenko
University (Prof. Reshetnyak, etc) and Institute of Petrochemistry
(Dr.Gerus, etc).
Initiation of the studies of liquid crystals in the early 80th gave
off the discovery of the "giant" optical nonlinearity caused
by photo-transformation of molecules. These studies initiated activity
of many scientific and application groups in this direction in 90th
and resulted in new types of LC devices for storage and processing
of optical information.
One of our most remarkable results is the invention at the beginning
of 90th the effect of 'photoalignment', that is the orientation
of liquid crystals on polarised-light-irradiated polymer films. These
results made a basement for the present activity of the team: photorefraction
of liquid crystals, physics of heterogeneous liquid crystals, light-induced
effect in polymers, light-induced anchoring of liquid crystals, development
of photoaligning materials.
Advances in these directions would be impossible without fruitful
long-term collaboration of the LCG with the Liquid Crystal Institute
(Kent, OH, USA), Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH),
LG-Philips LCD (Seoul, Korea), University of Ancona (Ancona, Italy),
University of Napoli (Napoli, Italy), University of Southampton (UK),
University of Bristol (UK), Martin-Luther University (Halle, Germany),
Lens University (France), Military University of Technology (Warsaw,
Poland) etc.
The members of the net are the co-authors of 8 issued US patent on
photoalignment technology including the priority patent on the method
to align liquid crystals by light. We published more than 100 papers
in the internationally recognized scientific journals (Physical Review,
Physical Review Letters, Journal of Applied Physics, Applied Physical
Letters, Liquid Crystals, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics etc)
last decade. Former and current members of the net are working in
the famous scientific centers (Liquid Crystal Institute (Kent, USA),
Motorola (Detroit, USA), Syracuse University (USA), University of
Bristol (UK). |
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