Research Facilities

The state-of-the-art $14-million, 60,000 square-foot Liquid Crystal and Materials Sciences building houses the program's research and instructional facilities. Research facilities are available for use by students and researchers, including academic and industrial partners. Information on procedures and fees associated with using facilities can be obtained from each facility’s website and/or contact person.

Liquid Crystal Device Prototype Facility

Supervisor/Contact: Prof. Philip J. Bos    Phone: (330) 672-2511     Email: pbos@lci.kent.edu
Contact: Douglas R. Bryant     Phone: (330) 672-1583     Email: dbryant@lci.kent.edu

The Liquid Crystal Device Prototype Facility offers a wide range of services & capabilities related to liquid crystals and displays in particular. The facility is centered in a 3,500 square foot Class 100-1,000-10,000 clean room facility for manufacturing or prototyping of liquid crystal devices & related research. The facility provides custom LCD devices which are not available elsewhere.

Organic Synthesis Facility

Supervisor: Dr. Quan Li
Contact: Yannian Li     Phone: (330) 672-1547     Email: yli17@kent.edu

The Organic Synthesis Facility is equipped to synthesize liquid crystalline materials that are not commercially available. The facility synthesizes materials that have been previously reported in the literature, purifies impure single liquid crystals, and formulates mixtures when an exact composition is provided. The facility has the capabilities to perform multi-step organic synthesis, chromatographic separations and chemical purification.

Characterization Facility

Supervisor: Prof. Oleg D. Lavrentovich
Contact: Sergij Shiyanovskii     Phone: (330) 672-1576     Email: sshiyano@kent.edu

The Materials and Surface Characterization Facility is equipped to determine material properties of bulk liquid crystals, properties of the liquid crystal/substrate interface, and properties of the substrate.

Transmission Electron Microscopy Facility

Supervisor/Contact: Dr. Min Gao     Phone: 330-672-7999     Email: mgao@kent.edu

The Cryo-Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) Facility offers atomic/nanoscale material characterization for cross-disciplinary (materials science/biology/nanotechnology) research. Available techniques include: traditional TEM, high resolution TEM (HRTEM), scanning TEM (STEM), cryo-TEM, electron diffraction techniques, energy-filtered TEM, electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS).

For more detail on our Research Facilities please visit the Liquid Crystal Institute.