Smectic liquid crystals in anisotropic colloidal silica gels

被引：27

作者：

Liang, D ^{[1
]}

Borthwick, MA

Leheny, RL

机构：

[1] Johns Hopkins Univ, Dept Phys & Astron, Baltimore, MD 21218 USA

[2] MIT, Dept Phys, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA

来源：

JOURNAL OF PHYSICS-CONDENSED MATTER | 2004年 / 16卷 / 19期

关键词：

D O I：

10.1088/0953-8984/16/19/011

中图分类号：

O469 [凝聚态物理学];

学科分类号：

070205 ;

摘要：

We report x-ray scattering studies of the smectic liquid crystal octylcyanobiphenol (8CB) confined by strained colloidal silica gels. The gels, comprised of aerosil particles, possess an anisotropic structure that stabilizes long-range nematic order in the liquid crystal while introducing random field effects that disrupt the smectic transition. The short-range smectic correlations that form within this environment are inconsistent with the presence of a topologically ordered state predicted for 3D random field XY systems and are quantitatively like the correlations of smectics confined by isotropic gels. Detailed analysis reveals that the quenched disorder suppresses the anisotropic scaling of the smectic correlation lengths observed in the pure liquid crystal. These results and additional measurements of the smectic-A to smectic-C transition in 4-n-pentylphenylthiol-4'-n-octyloxybenzoate (8S5) indicate that the observed smectic behaviour is dictated by random fields coupling directly to the smectic order while fields coupling to the nematic director play a subordinate role.

引用

页码：S1989 / S2002

页数：14

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