Related papers: Modeling the Field Control of the Surface Electroc…
We analyze the surface electroclinic effect (SECE) in a material that exhibits a first order bulk smectic-$A^*$ (Sm-$A^*$) -- smectic-$C^*$ (Sm-$C^*$) transition. The effect of a continuously varying degree of enantiomeric excess on the…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
Chiral liquid crystals often exhibit periodic modulations in the molecular director; in particular, thin films of the smectic-C* phase show a chiral striped texture. Here, we investigate whether similar chiral modulations can occur in the…
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.…
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…
Under an electric field, chiral smectic liquid crystals transit usually to the unwound SmC* phase where the helical structure is completely unrolled. Sometimes the sample transits initially towards an intermediate polar state before the…
Since a rigorous microscopic treatment of a nematic fluid system based on a pairwise interaction potential is immensely complex we had introduced a simple mean field potential which was a modification of the Maier-Saupe potential in a…
Recently we have formulated theory of bi-layer-dimerized chiral liquid antiferroelectric crystals. The spontaneous polarization has been increased owing to the strong interaction of the aromatic cores of the rod like liquid crystal…
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…
We study theoretically the effect of an external field on the nematic-smectic-A (NA) transition close to the tricritical point, where fluctuation effects govern the qualitative behavior of the transition. An external field suppresses…
We propose a Landau-de Gennes phenomenological model to describe the pressure induced smectic A-nematic phase transition. The pressure induced smectic A phase transitions are discussed for varying coupling between orientational and…
Topological semimetal antiferromagnets provide a rich source of exotic topological states which can be controlled by manipulating the orientation of the N\'eel vector, or by modulating the lattice parameters through strain. We investigate…
Electric field, uniform within the slab, emerging due to Fermi level pinning at its both sides is analyzed using DFT simulations of the SiC surface slabs of different thickness. It is shown that for thicker slab the field is nonuniform and…
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…
The critical behaviour of $d$-dimensional semi-infinite systems with $n$-component order parameter $\bm{\phi}$ is studied at an $m$-axial bulk Lifshitz point whose wave-vector instability is isotropic in an $m$-dimensional subspace of…