Smectic A herringbone patterns

Two qualitatively different SmA structures exhibiting herringbone-type layer patterns, to which we refer as the Defectless Smectic Herringbone (DSH) and the Dislocation Decorated Smectic Herringbone (DDSH) pattern are studied by a Landau-de Gennes-Ginzburg mesoscopic approach. Liquid crystal structu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of physics. Conference series 2014-01, Vol.558 (1), p.12009-10
Main Authors: Kralj, S, Lacaze, E, Cordoyiannis, G, Kutnjak, Z
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Crystal structure
Decoration
Dislocations
Liquid crystals
Melting
Order parameters
Phase transformations
Phase transitions
Physics
Proximity
Shape memory alloys
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Summary:Two qualitatively different SmA structures exhibiting herringbone-type layer patterns, to which we refer as the Defectless Smectic Herringbone (DSH) and the Dislocation Decorated Smectic Herringbone (DDSH) pattern are studied by a Landau-de Gennes-Ginzburg mesoscopic approach. Liquid crystal structures are described in terms of a nematic director field and a smectic complex order parameter. It is demonstrated that, in the proximity of the N-SmA phase transition, a melting of smectic layers could be realised even for relatively weakly-tilted smectic layers in DSH patterns (i.e. θt ≈ 100) for type I Sm4 phase. The width of melted region could be relatively large with respect to bulk values of the smectic characteristic lengths. In addition, a critical value of θt is determined at which a DDSH pattern is expected to appear.
ISSN:1742-6588
1742-6596
DOI:10.1088/1742-6596/558/1/012009