The findings, a simple and inexpensive way to manipulate the molecular properties of liquid crystals with light exposure, are now published in Advanced Materials. They shined polarized and unpolarized light at the liquid crystals through a microscope. In polarized light, light waves oscillate in specific directions rather than randomly in all directions, as they would in unpolarized light. Then, they used regular light to reorient the liquid crystals upward from that plane. "Certain types of structures couldn't be attempted before because we didn't have the right control of the three-dimensional alignment of the liquid crystals," Serra said.
