A state of matter in which molecules show a long-range orientational order and no positional order is called a nematic liquid crystal. The best known and most widely used (for example, in modern displays) is the uniaxial nematic, with the rod-like molecules aligned along a single axis, called the director. When the molecules are chiral, the director twists in space, drawing a right-angle helicoid and remaining perpendicular to the helix axis; the structure is called a chiral nematic. Here using transmission electron and optical microscopy, we experimentally demonstrate a new nematic order, formed by achiral molecules, in which the director follows an oblique helicoid, maintaining a constant oblique angle with the helix axis and experiencing twist and bend. The oblique helicoids have a nanoscale pitch. The new twist-bend nematic represents a structural link between the uniaxial nematic (no tilt) and a chiral nematic (helicoids with right-angle tilt).

Electric field-induced collective reorientation of nematic molecules is of importance for fundamental science and practical applications. This reorientation is either homogeneous over the area of electrodes, as in displays, or periodically modulated, as in electroconvection. The question is whether spatially localized three-dimensional solitary waves of molecular reorientation could be created. Here we demonstrate that the electric field can produce particle-like propagating solitary waves representing self-trapped “bullets” of oscillating molecular director. These director bullets lack fore-aft symmetry and move with very high speed perpendicularly to the electric field and to the initial alignment direction. The bullets are true solitons that preserve spatially confined shapes and survive collisions. The solitons are topologically equivalent to the uniform state and have no static analogs, thus exhibiting a particle–wave duality. Their shape, speed, and interactions depend strongly on the material parameters, which opens the door for a broad range of future studies.

We present magneto-optic measurements on two materials that form the recently discovered twist-bend nematic (N_{tb}) phase. This intriguing state of matter represents a fluid phase that is orientationally anisotropic in three directions and also exhibits translational order with periodicity several times larger than the molecular size. N_{tb} materials may also spontaneously form a visible, macroscopic stripe texture. We show that the optical stripe texture can be persistently inhibited by a magnetic field, and a 25T external magnetic field depresses the N-N_{tb} phase transition temperature by almost 1{∘}C. We propose a quantitative mechanism to account for this shift and suggest a Helfrich-Hurault-type mechanism for the optical stripe formation.

Liquid crystals (LCs) represent a challenging group of materials for direct transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies due to the complications in specimen preparation and the severe radiation damage. In this paper, we summarize a series of specimen preparation methods, including thin film and cryo‐sectioning approaches, as a comprehensive toolset enabling high‐resolution direct cryo‐TEM observation of a broad range of LCs. We also present comparative analysis using cryo‐TEM and replica freeze‐fracture TEM on both thermotropic and lyotropic LCs. In addition to the revisits of previous practices, some new concepts are introduced, e.g., suspended thermotropic LC thin films, combined high‐pressure freezing and cryo‐sectioning of lyotropic LCs, and the complementary applications of direct TEM and indirect replica TEM techniques. The significance of subnanometer resolution cryo‐TEM observation is demonstrated in a few important issues in LC studies, including providing direct evidences for the existence of nanoscale smectic domains in nematic bent‐core thermotropic LCs, comprehensive understanding of the twist‐bend nematic phase, and probing the packing of columnar aggregates in lyotropic chromonic LCs. Direct TEM observation opens ways to a variety of TEM techniques, suggesting that TEM (replica, cryo, and in situ techniques), in general, may be a promising part of the solution to the lack of effective structural probe at the molecular scale in LC studies. Microsc. Res. Tech. 77:754–772, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.