Liquid crystals confined to a cylindrical morphology are becoming an increasingly attractive area for basic studies because the surface is accessible to chemical treatment that controls the molecular anchoring strength and anchoring angle. In addition, the cylindrical symmetry permits a simplified analysis of liquid crystal director field configurations. Many of the phenomena and understanding that arise from these studies may be adopted to other shapes that are important in the applied area, like electroptical devices. Under confinement, the curvature of the system imposes large elastic distortions that strongly compete with molecular anchoring energies at the solid walls yielding a rich variety of director configurations. Configurational transitions are driven by curvature, by changing anchoring energies and by temperature.
Elastic distortions dominate the behavior at phase transitions which are strongly suppressed.
When the confinement is random, phase transitions may be completely absent. Due to strong surface interactions, surfaces induce local order which is retained to much higher temperatures than in bulk systems. These systems are being investigated with a host of techniques including high-resolution ac heat capacity, vapor pressure isotherms, thermal conductivity, and deuterium nuclear magnetic resonance. The low temperature work is carried out in a dilution refrigerator with 0.03 K minimum temperature and in a 1.1 K helium evaporator while the liquid crystal studies take place in three home-made calorimeters and in a 4.7 T superconducting NMR magnet.