Experiments, performed according to the NASA-Roscosmos protokol dated July 18, 2013
Experiment OASIS
Purposes:
- Studying of liquid crystals performance in conditions of microgravity, specifically studying of liquid's joint motion, diffusion (moving of particles from area with high concentration to area with low concentration) and merging of liquid-crystal film's layers to smectic islands.
- Obtaining new data on smectic islands in liquid crystalls by the means of observation and analysis of smectic formations (islands) in space.
Tasks:
- Studying of superficial and hydrodynamic performance of liquid crystal (FSLC) in reduced dimensionality (2D) in free-weighed films.
- Studying of 2D hydrodynamics /fluid physics bases, drops/groups diffusion, hydrodynamic interactions and drops/groups merging.
Used scientific hardware:
OASIS equipment consists of four modules ensuring the formation of thin nanometer floating air-bubble films where occurs jetting (injection) of sub-picolitre drops, and also external electric field distortion and dynamic fluctuations of bubbles.
Expected Results:
Major use of the results is stipulated in liquid-crystal microdisplays and high-speed electrooptical devices.
The intended experiments on investigating formation and behavior of liquid- crystal bubbles will allow solving the problem of dislocations' normalization of smectic ferroelectric liquid-crystal microdisplays.
Experiment results:
NASA equipment kits and also photo materials and video tapes returned to the Earth.