Bowlics: history, advances and applications

There are three types of liquid crystals (LCs) in the world: rodics, discotics and bowlics, corresponding to one-, two- and three-dimensional molecules, respectively. The rodics were discovered by the Austrian, F. Reinitzer, in 1888 and is the material behind the LC display industry of $100 billion annually. The discotics were discovered by S. Chandrasekhar's team in India, in 1977. The third type, bowlics, was proposed by a Chinese, LIN Lei (Lui LAM), in 1982 while working at the Institute of Physics, CAS, Beijing. Distinguished from the rodic and the discotic, a bowlic molecule breaks the up-down symmetry, and bowlic LCs are one of excellent candidates for switchable ferroelectrics with great potential applications in ultrahigh-density memory devices. The importance of strategic bowlic materials has recently attracted increasing attention of scientists from multiple disciplines and engineers from different backgrounds. In this review, the history of bowlics and their recent advances in molecular design, synthesis and applications are discussed.