Hydrogen-bonded silica gels dispersed in a smectic liquid crystal: A random fieldsystem
- 21 May 2002
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review E
- Vol. 65 (5), 050703
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.65.050703
Abstract
The effect on the nematic to smectic-A transition in octylcyanobiphenyl (8CB) due to dispersions of hydrogen-bonded silica (aerosil) particles is characterized with high-resolution x-ray scattering. The particles form weak gels in 8CB creating a quenched disorder that replaces the transition with the growth of short-range smectic correlations. The correlations include thermal critical fluctuations that dominate at high temperatures and a second contribution that quantitatively matches the static fluctuations of a random field system and becomes important at low temperatures.Keywords
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