Two experimental tests of the halperin-lubensky-Ma effect at the nematic-smectic- A phase transition

Effect of order parameter fluctuations on the Halperin-Lubensky-Ma first-order transition in superconductors and liquid crystals

– We show that order parameter fluctuations in a good type-I superconductor or a liquid crystal always increase the size of the first-order transition. This behavior is eventually changed when the system crosses over to an inverted-XY critical behavior, with the size of the first-order transition vanishing as a power law with a crossover exponent. We find good agreement between our theory and a...

The Phase Transitions from Chiral Nematic toward Smectic Liquid Crystals

A Chen-Lubensky energy is used to investigate phase transitions from chiral nematic to smectic C* and smectic A* liquid crystal phases. We consider a liquid crystalline material Ω confined between two parallel plates, where the dimensions of Ω are assumed to be large relative both to the width of a smectic layer and the material’s chiral pitch. We take boundary conditions so that the smectic ph...

Smectic A to smectic A phase transition

2014 We investigate properties of the Meyer-Lubensky free energy introduced in the description of the nematic to smectic A phase transition, and show that a new transition from a smectic A to another smectic A is possible for some values of the parameters used in the theory. The recent observations by G. Sigaud et al. may be interpreted within this context. LE JOURNAL DE PHYSIQUE TOME 40, JUIN ...

Gauge-dependent critical properties of the nematic to smectic-A phase transition in the 1/N-expansion

Effect of ZnO nanoparticles on the SmC*-SmA* phase transition temperature in electroclinic liquid crystals

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