The use of thermochromic liquid crystals in research applications, thermal mapping and non-destructive testing

The use of thermochromic liquid crystals (TLCs) in research and testing is becoming increasingly widespread. The materials can be used in a wide variety of applications involving the indication of temperature fields and thermal mapping. TLCs allow the rapid accumulation of experimental data and other information that would otherwise be unobtainable, or that can only be compiled over long periods of time. An introduction to TLCs is given here, and their properties are summarized. The materials can be used in a number of different forms, each of which are discussed with reference to optimized experimental procedures and to work published in the open literature.<>