Magnetic field-induced suppression of the amorphous Blue Phase

ORAL

Abstract

We present magneto-optical measurements on two liquid crystals that exhibit a wide temperature-range amorphous blue phase (BPIII). Magnetic fields up to 25T are found to suppress the onset of BPIII in both materials by almost 1 $^{\circ}$C. This effect appears to increase non-linearly with the field strength. The effect of high fields on established BPIII's is also reported, in which we find significant hysteresis and very slow dynamics. Possible explanations of these results are discussed.

*The authors acknowledge support from the NSF under Grants No. DMR-0964765 and 1307674. This work utilized the facilities of the NHMFL, which is supported by NSF cooperative agreement No. DMR-0084173, the State of Florida, and the US Department of Energy.

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Authors

  • Pavan Challa

    • Department of Physics, Kent State University
    • Department of Physics, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44240

  • Samuel Sprunt

    • Department of Physics, Kent State University
    • Department of Physics, Kent State University, Kent
    • Department of Physics, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44240

  • Antal Jakli

    • Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University
    • Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent. OH 44240
    • Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242

  • James T. Gleeson

    • Department of Physics, Kent State University
    • Department of Physics, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44240