Liquid Crystal Structure of Supercooled Liquid Gallium and Eutectic Gallium–Indium (Adv. Mater. 38/2021)

Liquid Gallium In article number 2104807, Antal Jákli, Metin Sitti, and co-workers observe a Schlieren texture in a supercooled liquid gallium film on a glass surface with an open-air boundary. The thin liquid film visualized with a circularly polarized light using reflective polarized microscopy shows two brush defects due to the presence of only 1/2-strength defects. The boundary layer tends to align the liquid crystal director parallel to the substrate in a degenerate planar condition.