Self-supporting smectic bubbles (vol 350, pg 297, 2000)

Self-supporting smectic bubbles consist of highly ordered membranes of nano meter to micrometer thickness. They can reach radii of several centimeters. Analogous to soap bubbles, they can be generated by excerting lateral pres sure on a planar freely suspended smectic film. We describe the optical pro perties of these objects and the determination of the membrane thickness fr om transmission images. The dynamics of the growth and motion of holes (reg ions of reduced number of layers) on the bubble surface is briefly discusse d.