COLLABORATION IN BASIC SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (COBASE)

Dr. Satyendra Kumar of Kent State University hosted Vladimir Chigrinov for two weeks during August 2000. Dr. Chigrinov is a professor at the Shubnikov Institute of Crystallography, a branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He visited the Smith Laboratory of Physics and held extensive discussions with Dr. Kumar's students and postdocs on the topic of photo alignment of liquid crystals. He held similar meetings with the research groups headed by Profs. John West, Oleg Lavrentovich, and Phil Bos of the Liquid Crystal Institute.

On the topic of the UV alignment method of liquid crystals in electro-optical devices, Dr. Chigrinov and Dr. Kumar have taken different approaches towards this goal, but both have achieved success. Drs. Kumar and Chigrinov hope to exchange the different photosensitive organic materials and technical knowledge that they have developed and used in the past, in order to use them in their respective UV exposure schemes. They plan to submit proposals to both the Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) and to the National Science Foundation for the funding of their continued efforts at Kent State.