Mertelj, Alenka, Cmok, Luka, Sebastián, Nerea et al. (5 more authors) (2018) Splay nematic phase. Physical Review X. pp. 1-12. ISSN 2160-3308
Abstract
Different liquid crystalline phases with long-range orientational but not positional order, so-called nematic phases, are scarce. It rarely occurs that a new nematic phase is discovered and such event is inevitably accompanied by a great interest. Here, we describe a transition from uniaxial to novel nematic phase characterized by a periodic splay modulation of the director. In this new nematic phase, defect structures not present in the uniaxial nematic are observed, which indicates that the new phase has lower symmetry than the ordinary nematic phase. The phase transition is weakly first order with a significant pretransitional behavior, which manifests as strong splay fluctuations. When approaching the phase transition, the splay nematic constant is unusually low and goes towards zero. Analogously to the transition from the uniaxial nematic to the twist-bend nematic phase, this transition is driven by instability towards splay orientational deformation, resulting in a periodically splayed structure. And, similarly, a Landau-de Gennes type of phenomenological theory can be used to describe the phase transition. The modulated splay phase is biaxial and antiferroelectric.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018, The Author(s). |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Chemistry (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 12 Nov 2018 17:20 |
Last Modified: | 21 Dec 2024 00:16 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.8.041025 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1103/PhysRevX.8.041025 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:138546 |