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Show moreThe optical retardation of a liquid crystal above the nematic-isotropic phase transition temperature TNI and subjected to planar alignment conditions at the substrate was investigated in the presence of an electric field applied normal to the substrates. The response was found to exhibit "S"-shaped behavior with electric field, and was larger near TNI than well above TNI. The results were examined in the context of a model that permits both biaxiality and a field-induced tilt of the molecular director. The results suggest that the primary effect of the electric field is to induce biaxiality, and in consequence suppress the order induced by the surface. No clear indication of a Freedericksz-like transition, either experimental or theoretical, was observed. Appropriate bibliographic citation and notice of the APS copyright must be included- "Kim J.-H., Petschek R.G., Rosenblatt C., Physical Review E - Statistical Physics, Plasmas, Fluids, and Related Interdisciplinary Topics 60:0.208333333333333, 5600-5606 (1999). Copyright 1999 by the American Physical Society."
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Show moreIn a previous article [Phys. Rev. E 60, 1799 (1999)], the authors considered a model Landau free energy that explained the ferriclinic phases of chiral smectic liquid crystals as a series of short period helical modulations. In this paper we begin with a physically more realistic, more microscopic interlayer free energy and show how our previous work can be derived using only simple short-ranged interactions. We then discuss what additional information this provides about the Landau coefficients used previously to construct the phase diagram for the heliclinic phases of chiral smectic liquid crystals. Finally, we investigate a means for explicitly including chirality in our model. Appropriate bibliographic citation and notice of the APS copyright must be included- "Stott J.J., Petschek R.G., Physical Review E - Statistical Physics, Plasmas, Fluids, and Related Interdisciplinary Topics 60:0.25, 6826-6830 (1999). Copyright 1999 by the American Physical Society."
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Show moreStatic light scattering and electric field-induced Kerr measurements were performed above the nematic-isotropic phase transition of a terminal-lateral-lateral-terminal negative Poisson ratio trimer. For both measurements the inverse susceptibility was observed to be nearly linear with temperature, a result inconsistent with our previously reported Kerr data [Phys. Rev. E 58, 2041 (1998)]. Appropriate bibliographic citation and notice of the APS copyright must be included- "Kang D., Mahajan M.P., Zhang S., Petschek R.G., Rosenblatt C., He C., Liu P., Griffin A.C., Physical Review E - Statistical Physics, Plasmas, Fluids, and Related Interdisciplinary Topics 60:4 B, 4980-4982 (1999). Copyright 1999 by the American Physical Society."
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Show moreBy considering short period helical planar modulations about the layer normal, we construct a model free energy for the ferriclinic phases observed in chiral smectic liquid crystals. We then use this free energy to construct the phase diagram for our model. The resulting phases are compared with the experimentally observed smectic-C* subphases (ferroclinic, antiferroclinic, and heliclinic). A strong coupling is found between the ferroclinic q=2Ï€/a and the heliclinic q=2Ï€/3a modes. This coupling was not considered in previous models. The resulting additional stability of this "locked in" phase is discussed. © 1999 The American Physical Society. Appropriate bibliographic citation and notice of the APS copyright must be included- "Stott J.J., Petschek R.G., Physical Review E - Statistical Physics, Plasmas, Fluids, and Related Interdisciplinary Topics 60:2 B, 1799-1807 (1999). Copyright 1999 by the American Physical Society."
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