@article {Godinho2016, title = {Hygroscopic study of hydroxypropylcellulose: Structure and strain-induced birefringence of capillary bridges}, journal = {European Physical Journal E}, volume = {39}, number = {9}, year = {2016}, note = {cited By 0}, publisher = {Springer New York LLC}, abstract = {Abstract.: The hygroscopic method developed previously for studies of lyotropic liquid crystals is used for the first time in experiments with millimetric capillary bridges made of a hydroxypropylcellulose/water mixture. Composition of such very small samples is controlled via humidity of the surrounding air. By a slow and well-controlled drying of initially isotropic samples, the isotropic/anisotropic phase transition is crossed and polydomain pseudo-isotropic capillary bridges are prepared. Kept in an atmosphere of constant humidity, these bridges are stretched and the strain-induced birefringence ∆n is measured as a function of the draw ratio λ. The variation of ∆n with λ is interpreted in terms of an affine uniaxial deformation of the initial pseudo-isotropic texture. {\textcopyright} 2016, EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.}, keywords = {Birefringence, Capillary bridges, Humidity control, Hydroxypro-pylcellulose, Hygroscopic methods, Isotropic samples, Liquid crystals, Lyotropic liquid crystal, Soft matter, Strain induced birefringence, Uniaxial deformation}, issn = {12928941}, doi = {10.1140/epje/i2016-16089-2}, url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84988851130\&doi=10.1140\%2fepje\%2fi2016-16089-2\&partnerID=40\&md5=57a0193a5a8082ce19d78d9f99c70ec6}, author = {Godinho, M.H.a and Pieranski, P.b and Sotta, P.c} }