Liquid Crystal 'Gemstones'

Profs. Arjun Yodh, Tom Lubensky, and Peter Collings formed a team to do research led by postdoctoral fellow Joonwoo Jeong and graduate student Zoey Davidson.  Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with a liquid crystal that dissolves in water shows, for the first time, that such crystals can form in the "columnar" phase leading to droplets (formed mostly of water) that look like gemstones.  The long range goal is to harness the ability of this liquid crystal system to form useful new materials.