English

Shear Alignment and Instability of Smectic Phases

Condensed Matter 2016-08-31 v1

Abstract

We consider the shear flow of well-aligned one-component smectic phases, such as thermotropic smectics and lamellar diblock copolymers, below the critical region. We show that, as a result of thermal fluctuations of the layers, parallel (cc) alignment is generically unstable and perpendicular (aa) alignment is stable against long-wavelength undulations. We also find, surprisingly, that both aa and cc are stable for a narrow window of values for the anisotropic viscosity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9501075,
  title  = {Shear Alignment and Instability of Smectic Phases},
  author = {Mark Goulian and Scott T. Milner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9501075},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

To appear in PRL. Revtex, 1 figure.

R2 v1 2026-07-22T11:48:55.471Z