Dear Colleagues,

In the field of soft matter self-organization studies the investigations of nematic liquid crystals have provided valuable contributions during the last several decades. Nowadays, this is still a very open field. Recent studies on nematic materials and structures are, not only highly relevant to the fundamental knowledge side, but are also a source of the design of advanced functional materials. The impact of new applications has recently shifted the interest from industrial manufacturing to understanding of structure–property relationships. This is increased by the availability of new unconventional nematogenic molecular structures, nematic materials exhibiting high optical birefringence, low viscosity, light-driven molecular conformations and good IR transparency. Recently an increasing interest in soft matter structures and their physical properties has been observed due to the continuous progress in material engineering of bend-core nematics forming twist-bend and biaxial phases. Moreover, the new era of nematic-based materials research began with the advent of research exploring composite nematics doped with functional nanoparticles, graphene and graphene oxide particles, dyes, fluorescent compounds, polymers, and others. This Special Issue will collect selected contributions shining light on current studies of nematic phase based materials, indicating new paths for soft matter engineering.

Dr. Wiktor Piecek
Dr. Przemysław Kula
Guest Editors

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• Structure–property relationships in nematic phase
• New nematogenic species
• Nematics for out of visible applications (NIR, IR, THz, GHz)
• High birefringence nematic liquid crystals
• Twist-bend nematogens
• Bend-core nematics and biaxial nematic phases
• Dual frequency driven nematic
• Nanoparticle doped nematic phase
• Polymer dispersed nematic liquid crystals
• Confined structures of nematic liquid crystals
• Chiral dopants and chiral nematic materials