Rational Design of Multi-Scale Materials and Their Emerging Applications

The 2017 Gordon Research Conference on Liquid Crystals will highlight outstanding research in liquid crystal physics, chemistry, mathematics and engineering with a particular focus on the design and application of new liquid-crystal-based materials. This 24th GRC on Liquid Crystals (held continually since 1972) will provide a venue for scientists to present and discuss both fundamental and applied research on all aspects of liquid crystals, while identifying and emphasizing mutually beneficial connections to other research disciplines such as biology, medicine, mesoscale and metamaterials, photovoltaics, and nanotechnology. The scope of this conference will include traditional topics as well as cross-disciplinary and related emerging topics with an even balance of experimental, theoretical and computational work.

Sessions will include presentations on synthesis and characterization of new liquid crystal molecules, novel liquid crystal phases, polymeric and elastomeric liquid crystals, electro-optic phenomena, defect structures and self-assembly. Cross-disciplinary and related emerging topics will introduce and discuss the current and potential role of liquid crystals in nanoscience and technology, drug delivery, photovoltaics, chiral recognition, biologically and medically relevant materials, metamaterials, photonics, materials based on mesoscale assembly, and other liquid crystal-matter/human interactions.

Participants will enjoy invited presentations from prominent and well established scientific leaders as well as emerging junior scientists from both academia and industry with a particularly wide range of expertise and research foci. The program will additionally include a young investigator session featuring presentations by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and a Monday afternoon Power Hour designed to address the issues women face working in science. Free time and evening poster sessions will provide excellent opportunities for additional networking between students as well as junior and senior researchers. The conference will maintain the GRC tradition of creating an inclusive atmosphere that fosters collaboration and new connections between scientists of different levels and between scientific fields.