Frustrated liquids: Liquid crystal blue phases.

Because the locally favorable structure is globally unfavorable, cholesteric liquid crystals are frustrated. Near the isotropic transition, blue phases (BP) appear as compromise structures to relieve this frustration BPI and BPII are soft, cubic crystals with giant unit cells. Here we describe experiments at Orsay and Bell Laboratories to study their structure, symmetry and behavior in an electric field. We follow this with a brief discussion on the origin of cholesteric frustration.