Book Review

The Physics of Liquid Crystals: Phase Transitions and Structural Properties

Realizing the growing importance of lyotropic liquid crystals, more and more scientists who are experts in thermotropic liquid crystals started to turn to lyotropic systems and involve students in such studies. It is therefore essential for them to read the currently available literature which guides them on how to handle these systems and summarizes the main results. People, who are already familiar with the main concepts of liquid crystals will be pleased to see the new book written by A.M. Figueiredo Neto and S.R.A. Salinas, "The Physics of Liquid Crystals: Phase Transitions and Structural Properties" and published by Oxford University Press, Oxford in 2005.

Assuming that the reader is already familiar with terms such as nematic, cholesteric, smectic and columnar liquid crystal structures, the book does not explain these terms, and instead explains detailed recipes of sample preparations and handling. Although they might seem to be very detailed, they are necessary and valuable for those beginning to work with these systems. I also found this necessary myself, even after 20 years of experience in thermotropic liquid crystal systems. I think the detailed description of the recipes is one of the strengths of the book. The book also gives a useful and interesting list of applications which again are vital for the readers.

Thanks to the backgrounds of the authors, the book is very strong in the discussion of the different phases and phase transitions, which is correctly reflected in the subtitle of the book.

The 304 pages are organized into 8 chapters.
-The first is devoted to main experimental facts and techniques.
-The second chapter describes the basic concepts of the phase transitions including the Landau theory, the Curie-Weiss model and Maier-Saupe model. This chapter is very useful even those who are working on thermotropic systems.
-The third and fourth chapters discuss phase diagrams of lyotropic mixtures and between periodically organized lyotropic systems.
-Chapter 5-7 are devoted to the discussion of the structures of the isotropic micellar and bicontinuous phases, the nematic and cholesteric, and systems with different dimensionalities.
-The last chapter discusses interesting new and related systems, such as magnetic colloids, microemulsions, Langmuir-Blodgett films, chromonics and lyo-banana mesophases.

Each chapter contains an adequate number of references to help readers to find everything that is important in the field.

I found that the book is clearly written and serves its purpose well to help guide students and liquid crystal scientists in their lyotropic related work. Although I would like to see more examples and discussion about the biological relevance of these materials, I can whole-heartily recommend to my fellow researchers, colleagues and students that they read and use the book. They will not be disappointed.

Antal Jákli
Liquid Crystal Institute
Kent State University

1. G. Brown, J.J. Wolken, "Liquid Crystal and Biological Structures," Academic Press, NY (1979).
2. R. Virchow, Virchow's achives 6, 571 (1854).
3. C. Mettenheimer, Corr.-Blatt d. Verein. F. gem Arbeit zur Furderung d. wiss. Heilkunde, 24, 331 (1857).

Details: Oxford University Press, Oxford (2005)

Date: June 2006

A.M. Figueiredo Neto and S.R.A. Salinas

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