Related papers: Continuous Isotropic-Nematic transition in compres…
When liquid-crystalline elastomers pass through the isotropic-nematic transition, the orientational order parameter and the elastic strain vary rapidly but smoothly, without the expected first-order discontinuity. This broadening of the…
High-resolution ac-calorimetry has been carried out on dispersions of aerosils in the liquid crystal octyloxycyanobiphenyl (8OCB) as a function of aerosil concentration and temperature spanning the crystal to isotropic phases. The…
Using the Landau-de Gennes theory, the temperature, pressure and frequency dependence of the non-linear effect in the isotropic phase above the isotropic-cholesteric phase transition is calculated. The influence of pressure on the…
We report direct experimental evidence of antiferroelectric to paraelectric phase transition under pressure in NaNbO3 using neutron diffraction at room temperature. The paraelectric phase is found to stabilize above 8 GPa and its crystal…
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 dielectric spectra of the twist bend nematic phase of the bent shaped achiral liquid crystal dimer are studied for the determination of the different relaxation modes. The two molecular processes were assigned one to the precessional…
This study combines broadband dielectric spectroscopy (BDS) experiments with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate the influence of nanoparticle (NP) inclusions on pretransitional phenomena in a liquid crystal (LC) host. We…
We study the effect of dielectric anisotropy of polymers on their equilibrium ordering within mean-field theory but with a formalism that takes into account the full n-body nature of van der Waals forces. Dielectric anisotropy within…
Dynamic simulations of the isotropic-nematic phase transformation of liquid crystal droplets under homeotropic anchoring are found to predict chiral symmetry-breaking dynamics. These observations occur when using material parameters for…
Ferronematic phases, composed of liquid crystals doped with magnetic nanoparticles, exhibit unique magnetomechanical coupling effects that are of interest for responsive materials. In this study, we investigate the influence of…
Extensions of a previously presented Landau-de Gennes type liquid crystalline phase transition model for the direct isotropic/smectic-A (lamellar) a phase transition to the direct isotropic/smectic-C (tilted lamellar) transition are…
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…
Polyhedral nematics are examples of exotic orientational phases that possess a complex internal symmetry, representing highly non-trivial ways of rotational symmetry breaking, and are subject to current experimental pursuits in colloidal…
Modeling and simulation studies using a high-order Landau-de Gennes type model for the direct isotropic/smectic-A liquid crystal transition are presented showing the existence of meta-stable nematic pre-ordering under certain conditions, in…
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…
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…
We propose an approach to a multiscale problem in the theory of thermotropic uniaxial nematics based on the method of statistical field theory. This approach enables us to relate the coefficients $A$, $B$, $C$, $L_1$ and $L_2$ of the…
The recently discovered anisotropy of the longitudinal resistance of two-dimensional electrons near half filling of high Landau levels is found to persist to much higher temperatures T when a large in-plane magnetic field B|| is applied.…
Suspensions of magnetic nanoplatelets in isotropic solvents are very interesting examples of ferrofluids. It has been shown that above a certain concentration {\Phi}NI such suspensions form a ferromagnetic nematic phase, which makes this…
Relaxor ferroelectrics have been a focus of intense attention due to their anomalous dielectric characteristics, diffuse phase transitions, and strong piezoelectricity. Understanding the structure and dynamics of relaxors has been one of…