The development of SiC for electronic applications has been a subject of intense research for nearly 40 years. Much of this research is motivated by the extraordinary combination of physical properties possessed by SiC, especially in the development of SiC-based devices for specific high-temperature, high-power, or high-frequency applications that are not suitable for Si- or GaAs-based devices. During the early years of SiC research and development, a significant amount of good, fundamental research was performed, but the development of commercially available SiC-based devices was retarded by low-quality bulk materials and inadequate epitaxial processes. In the late 1980s, research at academic institutions, such as North Carolina State University, and industrial laboratories, such as Westinghouse (now Northrup-Grumman), Advanced Technology Materials, Inc. (ATMI), and Cree Research, Inc., coupled with the commercial offering of highquality SiC wafers from Cree, created an opportunity for further advancement. Improvements in epitaxial processes and device processing strategies were also realized during this time. Together these factors have enabled the fabrication of high-quality device structures and have generated increased research and funding activities in SiC electronic devices.

The following is based on the presentation made by Christopher N. Bowman, recipient of the MRS Outstanding Investigator Award, at the 1997 MRS Spring Meeting.

I would like to focus on our recent work involving photopolymerizations of monomers in a liquid-crystalline environment. This work is one of the many aspects of photopolymerizations that we are focusing on at the University of Colorado. In particular this effort concentrates on understanding the influence of a liquid-crystalline medium and monomer segregation on polymerization behavior and polymer structure. These studies are of considerable importance for polymer-stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) because of the enormous potential impact on the area.

I will briefly introduce liquid crystals (LCs), FLCs, and photopolymerizations. I will then discuss the observed electrooptic properties and how these properties change as the LC phase during polymerization is varied. Finally I will address how polymerization kinetics are affected by the LC phase and monomer segregation. This discussion will include results from x-ray diffraction, polarized infrared spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry experiments.