Related papers: The Surface Electroclinic Effect near the First Or…
We present and analyze a model for the combination of bulk and surface electroclinic effects in the smectic-A* (Sm-A) phase near a Sm-A*--Sm-C* transition. As part of our analysis we calculate the dependence of the surface tilt on external…
Using a generalized Landau theory involving orientational, layering, tilt, and biaxial order parameters we analyze the smectic-A* and smectic-C* (Sm-A* -- Sm-C*) transition, showing that a combination of small orientational order and large…
This analysis of the electroclinic effect in ferroelectric liquid crystals with a first order Smectic-$A^*$--Smectic-$C^*$ (Sm-$A^*$--Sm-$C^*$) transition, shows they can be either Type I or Type II. In temperature--field parameter space…
Due to the intertwining between electronic nematic and elastic degrees of freedom, lattice defects and structural inhomogeneities commonly found in crystals can have a significant impact on the electronic properties of nematic materials.…
We explore the possibility that the large electroclinic effect observed in ferroelectric liquid crystals arises from the presence of an ordered array of disclination lines and walls. If the spacing of these defects is in the subvisible…
Ferroelectric ordering, the electroclinic effect and chiral smectic C (SmC*) - smectic A (SmA*) phase transitions in thin planar ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) cells are studied by means of linear electrooptic and second harmonic…
Surface critical behavior (SCB) refers to the singularities of physical quantities on the surface at the bulk phase transition. It is closely related to and even richer than the bulk critical behavior. In this work, we show that three types…
Systems with a bulk first-order transition can display diverging correlation lengths close to a surface. This surface induced disordering yields a special type of surface criticality. Using extensive numerical simulations we study surface…
An unresolved issue in the theory of liquid crystals is the molecular basis of the electroclinic effect in the smectic-A phase. Recent x-ray scattering experiments suggest that, in a class of siloxane-containing liquid crystals, an electric…
Recently, interference-induced surface superconductivity (SC) has been predicted within an attractive Hubbard model with $s$-wave pairing, prompting intensive studies of its properties. The most notable finding is that the surface critical…
We use molecular dynamics with a first-principles-based shell model potential to study the electrocaloric effect (ECE) in lithium niobate, LiNbO$_3$, and find a giant electrocaloric effect along a line passing through the ferroelectric…
The large magnetocaloric effect (MCE), which accompanies the first order ferromagnetic/anti-ferromagnetic transition in CsCl-ordered Fe-Rh alloys, has been investigated by measurements in slowly cycled magnetic fields of up to 2 T in…
Effects of the surface exchange anisotropy on ordering of ferromagnetic films are studied for the exactly solvable classical spin-vector model with D \to \infty components. For small surface anisotropy \eta'_s << 1 (defined relative to the…
For the IV-VI semiconductor family we derive an exact relation between the microscopic gap edge wave functions of the bulk insulator and the Dirac-Weyl topological surface state wave function, thus obtaining a fully microscopic surface…
We study a non-Anderson disorder driven quantum phase transition in a semi-infinite Dirac semimetal with a flat boundary. The conformally invariant boundary conditions, which include those that are time-reversal invariant, lead to…
Using spin- and angle-resolved spectroscopy and relativistic many-body calculations, we investigate the evolution of the electronic structure of (Bi$_{1-x}$In$_x$)$_2$Se$_3$ bulk single crystals around the critical point of the trivial to…
The surface phase behavior of binary mixtures of colloidal hard rods in contact with a solid substrate (hard wall) is studied, with special emphasis on the region of the phase diagram that includes the smectic A phase. The colloidal rods…
The elastocaloric effect (ECE) is a thermodynamic quantity relating changes in entropy to changes in strain experienced by a material. As such, ECE measurements can provide valuable information about the entropy landscape proximate to…
We study two aspects of the elasticity of smectic-$A$ elastomers that make these materials genuinely and qualitatively different from conventional uniaxial rubbers. Under strain applied parallel to the layer normal, monodomain smectic-$A$…
We investigate possible problems with universality in lattice gauge theory where a mixed fundamental SU(2) and SO(3)-invariant gauge group is used: the (second order) finite temperature phase transition becomes involved with first order…