Specific-Heat Critical Exponents near the Nematic—Smectic- $A$ Phase Transition

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4 November 1974

journal article
research article
Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters

Vol. 33 (19) , 1126-1129
https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.33.1126

Abstract

We have applied a recently developed method for sensitive calorimetric measurements to investigate the nematic—smectic-

A

phase transition in pure N-

p

-cyanobenzylidene-

p - n

-octyloxyaniline. The results indicate a very weak first-order transition with a transition entropy of

(0.017 \pm 0.002) R_{0}

. The critical exponents of the specific-heat anomaly have nonclassical values

α = 0.16 \pm 0.01

and

α^{'} = 0.14 \pm 0.02

.

Keywords

This publication has 13 references indexed in Scilit:

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