Polarized Optical Microscopy

Mesogens present optical anisotropy, so they display a great variety of textures depending on the mesophase as well as on the sample alignment

When we place the sample in a glass cell and introduce it in a heater plate, we are able to characterize the phase sequence of the material, just by watching the textures with a polarized optical microscope (working by transmission). We can change the temperature from -80 to 600 ºC.

Nematic Phase

Smectic Phase

Crystal

In our Section, we have an Olympus microscope, a Linkam LTS-350 heater plate and a Linkam TMS-94 temperature controller.