Surface-Freezing Transitions and Novel Tilted Hexatic Phases in Smectic Liquid-Crystal Films
- 31 March 1997
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 78 (13) , 2581-2584
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.78.2581
Abstract
We report the first unambiguous identification in a thermotropic liquid crystal of a hexatic smectic- , a phase with molecular tilt direction intermediate between those of the smectic- and smectic- , using electron diffraction in free-standing films of 5-(4′′-hexyl,3′-fluoro-p-terphenyl-4-oxy)-pentanoic acid ethyl ester. Our structural data directly support the proposed explanation of the unusual stripe phase observed optically. We also describe multiple surface-freezing transitions which occur at lower temperatures and involve novel tilted crystal phases.
Keywords
This publication has 25 references indexed in Scilit:
- Nature of Layer-by-Layer Freezing in Free-Standing 4O.8 FilmsPhysical Review Letters, 1996
- Scaling of 6-Fold Bond-Orientational Order Parameters in a Hexatic Liquid-Crystal Thin FilmPhysical Review Letters, 1996
- Observation of Two-Dimensional Hexatic Behavior in Free-Standing Liquid-Crystal Thin FilmsPhysical Review Letters, 1988
- Theory of Hexatic-to-Hexatic TransitionsPhysical Review Letters, 1988
- X-ray and optical studies of the thickness dependence of the phase diagram of liquid-crystal filmsPhysical Review A, 1987
- Orientational and positional order in a tilted hexatic liquid-crystal phasePhysical Review Letters, 1986
- X-Ray Observation of a Stacked Hexatic Liquid-CrystalPhasePhysical Review Letters, 1981
- Melting and the vector Coulomb gas in two dimensionsPhysical Review B, 1979
- Theory of Two-Dimensional MeltingPhysical Review Letters, 1978
- Ordering, metastability and phase transitions in two-dimensional systemsJournal of Physics C: Solid State Physics, 1973