Professor Walba's research focuses on the design and synthesis of liquid crystals, with an emphasis on chirality and polarity in liquid crystal systems. Working in collaboration with the group of Professor Noel Clark in the Department of Physics, Walba's group has made key contributions to the development of ferroelectric liquid crystals and devices, which are now found in commercial consumer electronics products. Current research in the group is directed towards design of new polar liquid crystalline systems for second order nonlinear optics, potentially useful in ultra-fast electrooptic switching for telecommunications, new liquid crystalline systems for organic photovoltaics, and new approaches to improved information displays.
keywords
organic stereochemistry, organic materials, liquid crystals, and applications of liquid crystals in electrooptics, organic electronics, and organic photovoltaics
