The 2011 Luckhurst–Samulski Prize

The Luckhurst–Samulski Prize was first announced in 2009 [1] and is awarded annually for the best paper published each year in Liquid Crystals. The Prize is named after Geoffrey Luckhurst and Ed Samulski, not only in honour of their roles as Founder Editors of the Journal, but also to mark their outstanding contributions to liquid crystal science. A full description of the Prize is given on the Journal's website, along with its terms and conditions [2].

What is meant by the best paper, and how do you select it from the 170 or so papers published every year in Liquid Crystals? This is clearly a demanding and subjective challenge. The exhaustive selection process begins with the referees who read the papers in greater detail than most. As part of the refereeing process, a referee can flag a paper as a worthy Prize winner and this is brought to the attention of the Selection Committee, consisting of the Editorial Board and Editors. The decision rests, however, with the Selection Committee, and each member can nominate any number of papers for the Prize. These nominations make up the longlist, from which those receiving the most nominations are taken forward to a shortlist. Each Selection Committee member then votes for the best paper from this shortlist.

The first two winners of the Prize have described quite different areas of liquid crystal science [3, 4]. The inaugural winner of the Luckhurst–Samulski Prize for 2009 was John Goodby and his colleagues for their paper entitled Molecular complexity and the control of self-organising processes [5], while for 2010, Antal Jákli was awarded the Prize for his paper entitled Electro-mechanical effects in liquid crystals [6].

For 2011, the longlist consisted of papers from every issue of the Journal published last year, reflecting the high quality of the papers accepted in Liquid Crystals. From this longlist the Selection Committee selected five papers for the shortlist, and any one of them would have made an outstanding winner of the Prize.

I am delighted to report that the 2011 Luckhurst–Samulski Prize has been awarded to Igor Muševič and his colleagues for their paper entitled Atomic force microscope-based method of measuring short cholesteric pitch in liquid crystals [7].

Geoffrey Luckhurst announced this outcome and presented the prize to Professor Muševič and his colleagues at a ceremony held at the 24^th International Liquid Crystal Conference held in Mainz, Germany. In their paper, the authors describe a new method for the measurement of short pitches in cholesteric liquid crystals based on the measurement of force between a glass microsphere and a cholesteric liquid crystal surface using an atomic force microscope. The measurement of pitches below 200 nm is possible using this method, values not accessible by the conventional optical Grandjean–Cano wedge method. The Selection Committee felt that this paper will provide the inspiration for many researchers to use this novel method, and will motivate many other experiments in this direction.

The remaining four articles were highly commended by the selection committee and these are, in strict chronological order, firstly the paper by Oswald, Jørgensen and Żywociński entitled Lehmann rotatory power: a new concept in cholesteric liquid crystals [8]. In this paper the authors measured, for five chiral molecules, both the helical twisting power (HTP), i.e. the potential to induce a helical distortion of a nematic ground state, and the Lehman rotatory power (LRP), i.e. the potential to induce a non-zero Lehmann coefficient in a nematic material. They show that these quantities differ for the different molecules, and that the ratio of these quantities for each molecule are similar but not equal. This reveals that the Lehmann effect is closely, but not completely, related to the twist of the phase.

The second of these papers was by Vij and his colleagues, entitled Discovery of a novel ferrielectric phase of five-layer periodicity in binary mixtures of chiral smectic liquid crystals exhibiting unusual reversed phase sequence [9], in which the authors describe a comprehensive study of electric field-induced birefringence in two binary liquid crystal mixtures. The discovery of a new phase is reported between the four-layer SmC*(1/2) and SmC*_α phases. This new polar biaxial ferrielectric subphase with a periodicity of five layers is assigned as the SmC*(3/5) phase.

The next paper was by John Lydon, entitled Chromonic liquid crystalline phases [10]. John pioneered the study of chromonic liquid crystals, and in this review of the area he reflects on the huge progress made by many research laboratories over the last two decades, much of which was inspired by his early contributions. This includes providing insights into potential applications of these materials in areas such as light-harvesting devices, optical compensators and biosensors.

The last of this group of four highly commended articles was by Sharon Jewell, entitled Living systems and liquid crystals [11], in which she provides insights into the crucial role played by liquid crystallinity in the function of living cells. Liquid crystal-based research in this area has the very considerable potential to lead to the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic biomedical applications, as well as enhancing our understanding of physical phenomenon such as cell signalling. This is an excellent example of how an interdisciplinary approach to liquid crystal science is vital and will contribute significantly to future developments in biomedical science.

Figure 1. Geoffrey Luckhurst presenting the 2011 Luckhurst-Samulski Prize to Igor Muševič (centre) and one of his co-authors, David Wilkes (right) at the 24^th International Liquid Crystal Conference held in Mainz, Germany.

I would like to thank everybody who published their work in Liquid Crystals during 2011 and the selection committee for their hard work choosing the 2011 Luckhurst–Samulski prizewinner. The 2012 competition is already well underway, and the first three winners have undoubtedly sent an extremely high standard for future winners to live up to.

Corrie T Imrie

Editor

Department of Chemistry

University of Aberdeen