6:00 PM - 6:15 PM
[21p-C205-9] Skewness Inversion Imaging of Martensitic Phase Transformation in Blue Phase Liquid Crystals using Early Warning Indicators
Keywords:early warning indicators, blue phase liquid cyrstals
Detecting when and where phase transitions occur is a challenging task, especially when the preceding and succeeding phases show similar features. This work demonstrates that generic statistical variables used in diverse fields as early warning signals of critical transitions can be a powerful tool for visualizing phase transitions in optically isotropic soft materials, blue phase liquid crystals in this study, that are featureless under ambient conditions. Being a generic physics model that only requires time-series microscopy data, the approach can be easily adapted to other material systems and microscopy techniques. Moreover, our work provides a framework for analyzing critical transitions in materials based on fundamental physics, which is becoming increasingly important in today’s world where research fields are becoming highly segmented.