Related papers: Tilt order parameters, polarity and inversion phen…
I consider the effects of polymers on the smectic phase of a host liquid crystal matrix. Focusing on the regime in which the polymers are predominately confined between the smectic layers, I find that the presence of the polymers can lead…
Recent experiments probing a new ferroelectric liquid crystal (CLF08) confined in cells with planar alignment have shown dielectric and optic anomalies suggesting the onset of ferrielectric ordering within the surface lattice of…
Using optical microscopy, phase shifting interferometry and atomic force microscopy, we demonstrate the existence of undulated structures in the meniscus of ferroelectric smectic-C* films. The meniscus is characterized by a periodic…
Optical birefringence measurements on a rod-like liquid crystal (8OCB), imbibed in silica channels (7 nm diameter), are presented and compared to the thermotropic bulk behavior. The orientational and positional order of the confined liquid…
Phase transitions in disordered systems can be smeared if rare spatial regions develop true static order while the bulk system is in the disordered phase. Here, we study the effects of spatial disorder correlations on such smeared phase…
A ternary liquid crystalline mixture was designed to obtain a tilted hexatic smectic phase in the glassy state. Structural, electro-optic, and dielectric properties of the mixture are investigated, and selected measurements are also…
Exploiting Landau's theory of phase transformations, defining an original order parameter and using the phenomenological transformation temperatures, it is reported that it is possible to describe in a global approach the conditions for the…
Molecular Dynamics simulations have been performed on the orientationally disordered crystal chloroadamantane: a model system where dynamics are almost completely controlled by rotations. A critical temperature T_c = 225 K as predicted by…
Under sufficient permanent random covalent bonding, a fluid of atoms or small molecules is transformed into an amorphous solid network. Being amorphous, local structural properties in such networks vary across the sample. A natural order…
In liquid crystals, if flexoelectric couplings between polar order and director gradients are strong enough, the uniform nematic phase can become unstable to formation of a modulated polar phase. Previous theories have predicted two types…
Quantitative thermodynamical, dynamical and magnetic properties of the solar and stellar plasmas are obtained by interpreting their emergent non-polarized and polarized spectrum. This inference requires the selection of a set of spectral…
We study phases and phase transitions that can take place in the newly discovered banana (bow-shaped or bent-core) liquid crystal molecules. We show that to completely characterize phases exhibited by such bent-core molecules a third-rank…
Motivated by recent observation of nematicity in Moir\'{e} systems, we study three different orbital orders that potentially can happen in Moir\'{e} systems: (1) the nematic order; (2) the valley polarization; and (3) the "compass order".…
Smectic blue phases (BPSm) are new mesophases of thermotropic liquid crystals, which exhibit a double geometrical frustration: the extension of chirality in three spatial dimensions like the classical blue phases, and helical twist…
Based on static and dynamical density functional theory, a phase-field-crystal model is derived which involves both the translational density and the orientational degree of ordering as well as a local director field. The model exhibits…
By phenomenological Landau analysis, it is shown that a scalar order parameter with the point-group symmetry $\Gamma_{1g}$ explains most properties associated with the phase transition in PrFe$_4$P$_{12}$ at 6.5 K. The scalar-order model…
We study transformations of self-organized defect arrays at the nematic-smectic A liquid crystal phase transition, and show that these defect configurations are correlated, or "remembered", across the phase transition. A thin film of…
This paper looks at the early theory of phase transitions. It considers a group of related concepts derived from condensed matter and statistical physics. The key technical ideas here go under the names of "singularity", "order parameter",…
According to quantum mechanics chiral molecules, that is molecules that rotate the polarization of light, should not exist. The simplest molecules which can be chiral have four or more atoms with two arrangements of minimal potential energy…
Smectic order on arbitrary curved substrate can be described by a differential form of rank one (1-form), whose geometric meaning is the differential of the local phase field of the density modulation. The exterior derivative of 1-form is…