1. Do some sort of surface modification on glass, gold, or polyurethane that I have reason to believe will lead to a particular liquid crystal orientation (and thus, appearance).
2. Apply liquid crystals to these surfaces. Most commonly, I use 5CB, 8CB or E7.
3. View results via polarized transmission microscopy. Usually the pics are at 10X or 20X magnification, as those tend to get the best "artsy" results, but some are at 4X or 50X. Hunt around for something I like and then take a digital picture.
So really, I never know if I'm going to find anything good from a particular sample, although I've found certain combinations of surface modification and liquid crystal are more likely to lead to something striking. Also, I've found that the less scientific significance a sample has, the more likely it is to be visually interesting. Rephrased: fuck-ups in science lead to success in art, at least in my case. The picture in today's post is 8CB on an HS(CH2)10COOH self-assembled monolayer on gold, I think at 50X mag (maybe 20X). If you click on it to view the larger image, you can more clearly see the colored bits (how's that for art-speak) that I really liked in this sample. 8CB is probably my favorite liquid crystal, if I were forced to choose a favorite. Nothing like a good room-temperature smectic A phase, hoo boy.
