Liquid-crystal-forming compounds are widespread and quite diverse. Soap can form a type of smectic known as a lamellar phase, also called neat soap. In this case it is important to recognize that soap molecules have a dual chemical nature. One end of the molecule (the hydrocarbon tail) is attracted to oil, while the other end (the polar head) attaches itself to water. When soap is placed in water, the hydrocarbon tails cluster together, while the polar heads adjoin the water. Small numbers of soap molecules form spherical or rodlike micelles, which float freely in the water, while concentrated solutions create bilayers, which stack along some direction just like smectic layers. Indeed, the name smectic is derived from the Greek word for soap. The slippery feeling caused by soap reflects the ease with which the layers slide across one another.

Many biological materials form liquid crystals. Myelin, a fatty material extracted from nerve cells, was the first intensively studied liquid crystal. The tobacco mosaic virus, with its rodlike shape, forms a nematic phase. In cholesterol the nematic phase is modified to a cholesteric phase characterized by continuous rotation of the direction of molecular alignment. An intrinsic twist of the cholesterol molecule, rather like the twist of the threads of a screw, causes this rotation. Since the molecular orientation rotates steadily, there is a characteristic distance after which the orientation repeats itself. This distance is frequently comparable to the wavelength of visible light, so brilliant colour effects result from the diffraction of light by these materials.

Perhaps the first description of a liquid crystal occurred in the story The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, by Edgar Allan Poe:

I am at a loss to give a distinct idea of the nature of this liquid, and cannot do so without many words. Although it flowed with rapidity in all declivities where common water would do so, yet never, except when falling in a cascade, had it the customary appearance of limpidity. . . . At first sight, and especially in cases where little declivity was found, it bore resemblance, as regards consistency, to a thick infusion of gum Arabic in common water. But this was only the least remarkable of its extraordinary qualities. It was not colourless, nor was it of any one uniform colour—presenting to the eye, as it flowed, every possible shade of purple, like the hues of a changeable silk. . . . Upon collecting a basinful, and allowing it to settle thoroughly, we perceived that the whole mass of liquid was made up of a number of distinct veins, each of a distinct hue; that these veins did not commingle; and that their cohesion was perfect in regard to their own particles among themselves, and imperfect in regard to neighbouring veins. Upon passing the blade of a knife athwart the veins, the water closed over it immediately, as with us, and also, in withdrawing it, all traces of the passage of the knife were instantly obliterated. If, however, the blade was passed down accurately between two veins, a perfect separation was effected, which the power of cohesion did not immediately rectify

The liquid described in this passage is human blood. In its usual state within the human body, blood is an ordinary disordered isotropic fluid. The disklike shape of red blood cells, however, favours liquid crystallinity at certain concentrations and temperatures.

Effect of liquid crystals on polarized light

An understanding of the principal technological applications of liquid crystals requires a knowledge of their optical properties. Liquid crystals alter the polarization of light passing through them. Light waves are actually waves in electric and magnetic fields. The direction of the electric field is the polarization of the light wave. A polarizing filter selects a single component of polarized light to pass through while absorbing all other components of incoming waves. If a second polarizing filter is placed above the first but with its polarization axis rotated by 90°, no light can pass through because the polarization passed by the first filter is precisely the polarization blocked by the second filter. When optically active materials, such as liquid crystals, are placed between polarizing filters crossed in this manner, some light may get through, because the intervening material changes the polarization of the light. If the nematic director is not aligned with either of the polarizing filters, polarized light passing through the first filter becomes partially polarized along the nematic director. This component of light in turn possesses a component aligned with the top polarizing filter, so a fraction of the incoming light passes through the entire assembly. The amount of light passing through is largest when the nematic director is positioned at a 45° angle from both filters. The light is fully blocked when the director lies parallel to one filter or the other.

During the last decades of the 19th century, pioneering investigators of liquid crystals, such as the German physicist Otto Lehmann and the Austrian botanist Friedrich Reinitzer, equipped ordinary microscopes with pairs of polarizing filters to obtain images of nematic and smectic phases. Spatial variation in the alignment of the nematic director causes spatial variation in light intensity. Since the nematic is defined by having all directors nearly parallel to one another, the images arise from defects in the nematic structure. Figure 2 illustrates a manner in which the directors may rotate or bend around defect lines. The resulting threadlike images inspired the name nematic, which is based on the Greek word for thread. The layered smectic structure causes layering of defects.

Nonuniformity in director alignment may be induced artificially. The surfaces of a glass container can be coated with a material that, when rubbed in the proper direction, forces the director to lie perpendicular or parallel to the wall adjacent to a nematic liquid crystal. The orientation forced by one wall need not be consistent with that forced by another wall; this situation causes the director orientation to vary in between the walls. The nematic must compromise its preference for all directors to be parallel to one another with the inconsistent orienting forces of the container walls. In doing so, the liquid crystal may take on a twisted alignment across the container (see Figure 3A). Electric or magnetic fields provide an alternate means of influencing the orientation of the nematic directors. Molecules may prefer to align so that their director is, say, parallel to an applied electric field.

Use of liquid crystals as optoelectronic displays

Optical behaviour and orienting fields underlie the important contemporary use of liquid crystals as opto-electronic displays. Consider, for example, the twisted-nematic cell shown in Figure 3A. The polarizer surfaces are coated and rubbed so that the nematic will align with the polarizing axis. The two polarizers are crossed, forcing the nematic to rotate between them. The rotation is slow and smooth, assuming a 90° twist across the cell. Light passing through the first polarizer is aligned with the bottom of the nematic layer. As the nematic twists, it rotates the polarization of the light so that, as the light leaves the top of the nematic layer, its polarization is rotated by 90° from that at the bottom. The new polarization is just right for passing through the top filter, and so light travels unhindered through the assembly.

If an electric field is applied in the direction of light propagation, the liquid crystal directors align with the orienting field, so they are no longer parallel to the light passing though the bottom polarizer (Figure 3B). They are no longer capable of rotating this polarization through the 90° needed to allow the light to emerge from the top polarizer. Although this assembly is transparent when no field is applied, it becomes opaque when the field is present. A grid of such assemblies placed side by side may be used to display images. If one turns on the electric field attached to the parts of the grid that lie where the image is to appear, these points will turn black while the remaining points of the grid stay white. The resulting patchwork of dark and light creates the image on the display. In a wristwatch, calculator, or computer these may be simply numbers or letters, and in a television the images may be detailed pictures. Switching the electric fields on or off will cause the picture to move, just as ordinary television pictures display an ever-changing stream of electrically encoded images.