Sivaramakrishna Chandrasekhar - Research

Research

Liquid crystals made of rod-like molecules had been discovered in 1888, and many compounds had been synthesized at Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany in the 1920s and 30s. Some physical studies had been undertaken by the German and Russian schools during that era, but the subject later languished till the mid-fifties. Starting in the late fifties, the systematic synthetic effort by George William Gray in the UK and the physical studies by Wilhelm Maier in Germany (including the well-known Maier–Saupe or MS theory) started a revival of the subject. Chandrasekhar and his co-workers made contributions to the application of the dynamical theory of reflections to study the fascinating optical properties of cholesteric liquid crystals which have a helical structure with a pitch which is usually ~ 0.5 mm, and to the extensions of the molecular theory of nematic liquid crystals beyond the MS model. Chandrasekhar was invited to establish a liquid crystal laboratory in RRI after the Department of Science and Technology started supporting it in 1971. The move had a highly positive impact on his productivity. Along with a couple of former students who moved with him to RRI, in a short time, he developed a laboratory with all the essential facilities needed for research in the chosen area. Realizing that cutting-edge research would not be possible without an in-house capacity to produce new materials, a synthetic organic chemistry laboratory was set up. Soon many new experimental and a few theoretical results emerged and the Liquid Crystal Laboratory at RRI became one of the leading centres of research in the world. The twisted nematic liquid crystal display was invented in Europe in 1971 and recently, LCDs have displaced CRTs as commercially the most important displays. In cooperation with Chandrasekhar and his colleagues, the Bharat Electronics Limited(BEL), Bangalore, developed indigenous know-how for the manufacture of simple LCDs for the domestic market.