Chromonic liquid crystals form when certain molecules are dissolved in a solvent, usually water, and the molecules spontaneously assemble into anisotropic structures. If the density of these structures is high enough and the temperature is low enough, they organize into a liquid crystal phase with orientational and sometimes with positional order also. Chromonic liquid crystals have been studied for more than half a century, yet theoretical, computational, and experimental investigations in the last decade have revealed many more details about them. The molecular structures that form chromonic liquid crystals are quite varied, and as a result the assemblies that these molecules form vary significantly also. Recent research has begun to shed light on these assembly processes, revealing that these too can be quite different from one system to another.

当某些分子溶于溶剂（通常是水）中时，形成发色液晶，并且这些分子自发地组装成各向异性结构。如果这些结构的密度足够高并且温度足够低，则它们会以取向并且有时也以位置顺序组织为液晶相。色相液晶已经研究了半个多世纪，但是在过去的十年中，理论，计算和实验研究已经揭示了有关它们的更多细节。形成发色液晶的分子结构变化很大，结果这些分子形成的组装体也显着变化。最近的研究已经开始阐明这些组装过程，