Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to the mesomorphic phase of a liquid crystal in which the molecules are oriented in loose parallel lines.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective physics, chemistry Describing the structure of some liquid crystals whose molecules align in loose parallel lines.
  • noun Such a material

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Greek nēma, nēmat-, thread; see (s)nē- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek νήματος, genitive of νῆμα ("thread").

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Examples

  • One of the ordered phases is the "nematic" phase, in which the molecules move as if in an ordinary three-dimensional liquid, but with their axes mainly pointing the same way.

    Press Release: The 1991 Nobel Prize in Physics 1991

  • The magazine New Scientist reports researchers have developed a prototype of such glasses, each lens of which consists of a five-micron layer of nematic liquid crystal sandwiched between two pieces of glass.

    Archive 2006-04-02 Edward Willett 2006

  • The magazine New Scientist reports researchers have developed a prototype of such glasses, each lens of which consists of a five-micron layer of nematic liquid crystal sandwiched between two pieces of glass.

    A better way to focus Edward Willett 2006

  • Further development of this technique enabled us to synthesize helical polyacetylene that consists of clockwise or counterclockwise helical structure of fibrils, by use of chiral nematic liquid crystals.

    Hideki Shirakawa - Autobiography 2001

  • We found that an equimolar mixture of nematic liquid crystals bearing a phenylcyclohexyl moiety was useful for that purpose.

    Hideki Shirakawa - Autobiography 2001

  • Pierre-Gilles de Gennes developed the theory for the behavior of liquid crystals and their transitions between different ordered phases (nematic, smectic, etc).

    The Nobel Prizes in Physics 1901-2000 2000

  • One of the phases of a liquid crystal, called nematic, can be compared with a ferromagnet, where the atoms, which are themselves tiny magnets, are ordered so that they point in essentially the same direction - with slight variations.

    The Nobel Prize in Physics 1991 - Presentation Speech 1997

  • De Gennes himself made his chief contributions to our knowledge of liquid crystals when he explained what is termed anomalous light scattering from nematic liquid crystals.

    Press Release: The 1991 Nobel Prize in Physics 1991

  • A liquid of nematic "droplets" viewed through a polarisation microscope.

    The Nobel Prize in Physics 1991 1991

  • They offer up to 10 times higher contrast ratios when viewed from an angle as compared to mainstream monitors that use twisted nematic TN technology.

    unknown title 2011

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