The majority of research on liquid crystals, up to this point, has focused on calamitic systems. However, in recent years bent-core liquid crystals have begun to mature into a relevant subfield of research. The shape and symmetry of bent-core molecules offers a wealth of new questions not presented by calamitic liquid crystals, many of which have yet to be addressed. In this work, I use magnetic field induced birefringence, dynamic light scattering, and density measurements to provide evidence of a transition between two optically isotropic phases in two bent-core liquid crystals, and to show that this transition can be understood in the framework of the theoretically predicted, but previously unobserved tetrahedratic - isotropictransition.
Also, four distinct, frequency dependent, regions of electrohydrodynamic convection (EHC) were characterized in a bent-core liquid crystal, which showed two frequency dependent changes in the sign of the electrical conductivity anisotropy. EHC in this liquid crystal showed several interesting features. First, narrow stripes parallel to the initial director direction were observed in electric fields at low frequencies. Next, a pattern with wide stripes that ran perpendicular to the initial director direction were observed at higher frequecies. This was followed, at higher frequencies, by a region that displayed no EHC. And finally, a second wide-stipe pattern that had optical properties identical to the lower frequecy pattern, but different threshold behavior, was observed at frequencies above the other patterns.