Lisa Tran Takes Fifth Place in the Nikon Small World Competition

Lisa Tran Takes Fifth Place in the Nikon Small World Competition posted: 09/21/2017

This video is of cholesteric liquid crystal double emulsions, with water in the inner and outer phases, and cholesteric liquid crystal in the middle phase. The inner water phase has excess salt, which causes the emulsion to swell over time, thinning out the liquid crystal shell. Surfactant is added into the outer water phase, and as the surfactant absorbs onto the liquid crystal-water interface, the cholesteric responds to the surfactant by forming stripes on its surface. The stripes continue to evolve as the shell thins due to the emulsion swelling.

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