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ABSTRACT
The dynamics of liquid crystal droplet coalescence in an isotropic melt was studied using polarised optical microscopy. Droplets of both nematic and cholesteric phases, formed from a mixture of nematic liquid crystal and chiral-photochromic dopant, were investigated. It was found that the characteristic coalescence times were significantly increased in the cholesteric phase compared to the nematic phase due to the presence of cholesteric helical ordering. In addition, these characteristic times increased as the cholesteric pitch decreased.
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Acknowledgments
We thank K.D. Baklanova for assistance with experiments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Funding
This research was supported by Russian Science Foundation Grant [23-22-00434].