The molecular organization is largely unknown, but bears some resemblance to liquid crystalline DNA phases observed in vivo. The phase boundaries and mesoscopic structural properties of plectonemically supercoiled, nicked and linearised plasmid DNA are interpreted in terms of electrostatic and depletion interactions, chain flexibility, chain topology, primery structure, and effects of condensing ligands. Main experimental probes are neutron scattering in LLB and ILL , polarisation microscopy, electrophoresis, NMR , UV, AFM, FPLC etc. Prof.Victor Kabanov 's polymer department, Prof.Valery Shibaev's liquid crystals group which area of research interest is the synthesis, study, and application of liquid crystal materials. In particular we have focused on high molecular mass polymer liquid crystals, mesogenic groups that are connected to a main chain with methylenic and oxymethylenic fragments as spacers.
Main chains are acrylic, polyesters, polysiloxanes, and polyether- type.
These materials are obtained by copolymerization of chiral mesogenic monomers with nematogenic monomers. The macromolecular nature of cholesteric polymers predetermines the creation of the frozen cholesteric structure in solids, films, and coating. Our group has fabricated a polarizing filter material using the cholesteric phase with selective reflection based on the percentage of the chiral component. The resultant filters can span the visible through IR spectra and are good, for example, for laser light protection. They operate both in the reflective and transmissive mode.