![]() By the end of August 1889 he had published his results in the Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie. The intermediate cloudy phase clearly sustained flow, but other features, particularly the signature under a microscope, convinced Lehmann that he was dealing with a solid. He was able to make observations in polarized light, and his microscope was equipped with a hot stage (sample holder equipped with a heater) enabling high temperature observations. Lehmann started a systematic study, first of cholesteryl benzoate, and then of related compounds which exhibited the double-melting phenomenon. The research was continued by Lehmann, who realized that he had encountered a new phenomenon and was in a position to investigate it: In his postdoctoral years he had acquired expertise in crystallography and microscopy. īy that time, Reinitzer had discovered and described three important features of cholesteric liquid crystals (the name coined by Otto Lehmann in 1904): the existence of two melting points, the reflection of circularly polarized light, and the ability to rotate the polarization direction of light.Īfter his accidental discovery, Reinitzer did not pursue studying liquid crystals further. Reinitzer presented his results, with credits to Lehmann and von Zepharovich, at a meeting of the Vienna Chemical Society on May 3, 1888. The exchange of letters with Lehmann ended on April 24, with many questions unanswered. Reinitzer's Viennese colleague von Zepharovich also indicated that the intermediate "fluid" was crystalline. Lehmann examined the intermediate cloudy fluid, and reported seeing crystallites. Seeking help from a physicist, on March 14, 1888, he wrote to Otto Lehmann, at that time a Privatdozent in Aachen. ![]() At 145.5 ☌ (293.9 ☏) it melts into a cloudy liquid, and at 178.5 ☌ (353.3 ☏) it melts again and the cloudy liquid becomes clear. ![]() He found that cholesteryl benzoate does not melt in the same manner as other compounds, but has two melting points. Reinitzer perceived that color changes in a derivative cholesteryl benzoate were not the most peculiar feature.Ĭhemical structure of cholesteryl benzoate molecule Previously, other researchers had observed distinct color effects when cooling cholesterol derivatives just above the freezing point, but had not associated it with a new phenomenon. In 1888, Austrian botanical physiologist Friedrich Reinitzer, working at the Karl-Ferdinands-Universität, examined the physico-chemical properties of various derivatives of cholesterol which now belong to the class of materials known as cholesteric liquid crystals.
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