Heat-capacity studies near the smectic-A—smectic-C(—smectic-C*) transition in a racemic (chiral) smectic liquid crystal

Abstract
High-resolution heat-capacity measurements have been carried out on the chiral and racemic versions of 2-methylbutyl-4′-n-pentyloxy-biphenyl-4-carboxylate (2M45OBC). Both smectic-A—smectic-C and smectic-A—chiral-smectic-C transitions are found to be mean-field-like with a large sixth-order term in the Landau free-energy expansion. Our results also shed light on similarities and differences between the chiral and racemic compounds.