Related papers: Thermotropic Nematic and Smectic Order in Silica G…
The optical birefringence of rod-like nematogens (7CB, 8CB), imbibed in parallel silica channels with 10 nm diameter and 300 micrometer length, is measured and compared to the thermotropic bulk behavior. The orientational order of the…
We explore the nematic ordering of the rod-like liquid crystals 5CB and 6CB, embedded into parallel-aligned nanochannels in mesoporous silicon and silica membranes as a function of mean channel radius (4.7<=R <=8.3 nm), and thus geometrical…
We explore the optical birefringence of the nematic binary mixtures 6CB$_{1-x}$7CB$_x$ ($0~\le~x~\le~1$) imbibed into parallel-aligned nanochannels of mesoporous alumina and silica membranes for channel radii of $3.4~\le~R~\le 21.0$ nm. The…
Optical birefringence and light absorption measurements reveal four regimes for the thermotropic behavior of a nematogen liquid (7CB) upon sequential filling of parallel-aligned capillaries of 12 nm diameter in a monolithic, mesoporous…
Optical polarimetry measurements of the orientational order of a discotic liquid crystal based on a pyrene derivative and confined in parallel-aligned nanochannels of monolithic mesoporous alumina, silica, and silicon as a function of…
We report combined optical birefringence and neutron scattering measurements on the liquid crystal 12CB nanoconfined in mesoporous silicon layers. This liquid crystal exhibits strong nematic-smectic coupling responsible for a discontinuous…
Comprehensive x-ray scattering studies have characterized the smectic ordering of octylcyanobiphenyl (8CB) confined in the hydrogen-bonded silica gels formed by aerosil dispersions. For all densities of aerosil and all measurement…
We present high-resolution optical birefringence measurements upon sequential filling of an array of parallel-aligned nanochannels (14~nm mean diameter) with rod-like (acetonitrile) and disc-like (hexafluorobenzene) molecules. We will…
We study experimentally the impact of spherical nanoparticles on the orientational order parameters of a host nematic liquid crystal. We use spherical core-shell quantum dots that are surface functionalized to promote homeotropic anchoring…
We report filling-fraction dependent dielectric spectroscopy measurements on the relaxation dynamics of the rod-like nematogen 7CB condensed in 13 nm silica nanochannels. In the film-condensed regime, a slow interface relaxation dominates…
We have studied the effects of quenched random disorder created by dispersed aerosil nanoparticle gels on the nematic to smectic-A (N-SmA) and smectic-A to reentrant nematic (SmA- RN) phase transitions of thermotropic liquid crystal…
The short-range order which remains when the isotropic to smectic-A transition is perturbed by a gel of silica nanoparticles (aerosils) has been studied using high-resolution synchrotron x-ray diffraction. The gels have been created…
We report dielectric relaxation spectroscopy experiments on two rod-like liquid crystals of the cyanobiphenyl family (5CB and 6CB) confined in tubular nanochannels with 7 nm radius and 340 micrometer length in a monolithic, mesoporous…
We study the kinetics of the nematic-isotropic transition in a two-dimensional liquid crystal by using a lattice Boltzmann scheme that couples the tensor order parameter and the flow consistently. Unlike in previous studies, we find the…
Fe-based metallic glasses are promising functional materials for advanced magnetism and sensor fields. Tailoring magnetic performance in amorphous materials requires a thorough knowledge of the correlation between structural disorder and…
We report a high-resolution x-ray scattering study of the smectic liquid crystal octylcyanobiphenyl (8CB) confined to aligned colloidal aerosil gels. The aligned gels introduce orientational fields that promote long-range nematic order…
Compared to isotropic liquids, orientational order of nematic liquid crystals makes their rheological properties more involved, and thus requires fine control of the flow parameters to govern the orientational patterns. In microfluidic…
The effects of dispersed aerosil nanoparticles on two of the phase transitions of the thermotropic liquid crystal material 4-n-pentylphenylthiol-4'-n-octyloxybenzoate 8barS5 have been studied using high-resolution x-ray diffraction…
The orientational and translational order of a thermotropic ferroelectric liquid crystal (2MBOCBC) imbibed in self-organized, parallel, cylindrical pores with radii of 10, 15, or 20 nm in anodic aluminium oxide monoliths (AAO) are explored…
Confinement in the nanochannels of porous silicon strongly affects the phase behavior of the archetype liquid-crystal 4-n-octyl-4-cyanobiphenyl (8CB). A very striking phenom- enon is the development of a short-range smectic order, which…