We studied the effect of light-induced gliding of the easy axis of dye-doped nematic liquid crystal on an aligning polymer surface. The observed drift of the easy axis is over tens of degrees and is caused by light-induced anisotropic adsorption and/or desorption of dye molecules on or from the aligning layer in the presence of light-induced bulk torque. We present a theoretical model that explains the experimental data in terms of the light-induced changes of the adsorbed dye molecules angular distribution due to their exchange with the dye molecules from the liquid crystal bulk.

We consider two-component suspensions of non-magnetic and magnetic rods and show that alignment of the magnetic component by a magnetic field orients the non-magnetic one. We studied suspensions of non-magnetic V 2 O 5 rods doped with magnetic Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles. In the isotropic phase, the fieldinduced orientation of Fe 3 O 4 particle chains aligns the V 2 O 5 rods. Moreover, the nematic phase reorients towards the field at z50 Oe, much less than the z5 kOe needed for pure V 2 O 5 suspensions.Such effects should exist in any suspension of two kinds of rods, one of which is sensitive to an external field.

We report a hybrid mesophase consisting of magnetic nanorods confined between the non-ionic surfactant bilayers of a lamellar phase. The magnetic field-induced ordering of the nanorods was measured experimentally and modeled by a two-dimensional Onsager theory including the third virial coefficient. The nanorods are strongly confined in layers, with no orientational coupling from one layer to the next. At high volume concentration they exhibit spontaneous in-plane orientational ordering and form a stack of independent two-dimensional nematic systems. This isotropic-nematic transition is first-order.