Influence of finite size and wetting on nematic and smectic phase behavior of liquid crystal confined to controlled-pore matrices

Zdravko Kutnjak, Samo Kralj, Gojmir Lahajnar, and Slobodan Žumer
Phys. Rev. E 70, 051703 – Published 16 November 2004

Abstract

The high-resolution calorimetric study was carried out on octylcyanobiphenyl liquid crystal (LC) confined to various controlled-pore glass (CPG) matrices with silane-treated surface. The diameter of the voids cross section ranged between 23.7 and 395nm. The results are compared to those obtained previously on CPG voids nontreated with silane. We found a striking similarity between the shifts in the isotropic to nematic and nematic to smectic-A phase transition temperatures as a function of the void radius in which order parameter variations at the LC-void interface play the dominant role. Weaker temperature shifts are observed in silane-treated samples, where surface ordering tendency is larger. In nontreated samples, a finite-size scaling law in the maximum value of the heat capacity at the nematic to smectic-A transition was observed for void diameters larger than 20nm. In silane-treated samples, this behavior is considerably changed by surface wetting interactions.

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  • Received 21 June 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.70.051703

©2004 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Zdravko Kutnjak1,*, Samo Kralj2,1, Gojmir Lahajnar1, and Slobodan Žumer3,1

  • 1Jožef Stefan Institute, P. O. Box 3000, 1001 Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • 2Laboratory of Physics of Complex Systems, Faculty of Education, University of Maribor, Koroška 160, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia
  • 3Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

  • *URL: http://www2.ijs.si/~kutnjak

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Vol. 70, Iss. 5 — November 2004

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