Nematic liquid crystals have been known for decades and are widely utilized in modern display technologies, constituting a multibillion-dollar business. Their applicability lies in a unique combination of fluidity, anisotropic physical properties, and processability. The standard nematic state is uniaxial and non-polar. A polar counterpart was already envisioned more than a hundred years ago by M. Born, but it was not experimentally realised until 2017. In this talk, I will provide an overview of our investigations into ferroelectric nematic materials, highlighting their distinct dielectric, viscoelastic and optical characteristics. Notably, their remarkably large second-order optical susceptibility values open exciting opportunities for non-linear photonic applications. One promising approach involves fabricating tailored polar orientational patterns via photoalignment, thus shaping the non-linear optical susceptibility of the material. I will also demonstrate how photopatterning can be used to structure such polarization patterns by exploiting the flexoelectric effect.
Accessible medical imaging
In 2020, more than 2.7 million people were diagnosed with cancer in the European Union (EU), whereas 1.3 million people died from cancer. By 2035, the number of cancer cases is expected to increase by 24%, making cancer the leading cause of death in the EU. Currently,...
