Molecular-field derivation of a generalized Landau free energy for the isotropic, nematic, smectic-A, and smectic-Cphases of liquid crystals

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A functional-integral representation for the partition function of interacting, uniaxial molecules is derived using the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation. The mean-field evaluation of the partition function gives four possible liquid-crystalline phases (isotropic, nematic, smectic-A, smectic-C) in systems composed of uniaxial molecules. The nature of the multicritical nematic, smectic-A, smectic-C (NAC) point is investigated. Expressions for the parameters that appear in the Landau–de Gennes free energy are derived and the effect of truncating polynomial expansions of the free energy is investigated. It is found that truncation effects can be large.

This publication has 33 references indexed in Scilit: