Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2005 APS March Meeting
Monday–Friday, March 21–25, 2005; Los Angeles, CA
Session W2a: Novel Ordering in Smectics and Other Layered Systems |
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Sponsoring Units: DCMP Chair: Jonathan Selinger, Naval Research Lab Room: LACC 151 |
Thursday, March 24, 2005 2:30PM - 3:06PM |
W2a.00001: Smectics with Three Dimensional Periodicity Invited Speaker: We discuss the ordering of liquid crystalline phases which possess both cubic symmetry and smectic-like, lamellar ordering. We will show that there is a fundamental frustration in this system. We propose an ansatz based on triply-periodic minimal surfaces. We discuss more general constructions based on topological field configurations and tesselation of the hyperbolic plane. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 24, 2005 3:06PM - 3:42PM |
W2a.00002: Banana Phases: Exotic Chiral and Polar Ordering Invited Speaker: Molecular organization in condensed phases is mostly a matter of shape, so a time-honored mode of exploration of ``phase space'' in liquid crystal science has been to try different molecular shapes (rods, discs, laths, wedges, etc.). A current important theme is molecular bananas, which, as their shape suggests, might be expected to organize in a polar way. Indeed they do, but beyond this, almost everything learned about them in the past few years has been surprising. I will discuss some of the new phases and phenomena, including Pasteur's experiment (spontaneous chiral resolution) in a fluid of achiral molecules, triclinic fluid order, chiral line liquids of achiral molecules, electric field switching of handedness, ferroelectric and antiferroelectric phases with supermolecular-scale polarization modulation, and chiral thermotropic sponge phases. Many of these structures can be understood on the basis of the interplay of strong stratification into 2D fluid layers, and frustration due to molecular ``misfitting.'' \newline \newline Work in collaboration with the Boulder Liquid Crystal Physics and Chemistry Groups, supported by NSF MRSEC Grant DMR 0213918. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, March 24, 2005 3:42PM - 4:18PM |
W2a.00003: Probing nano-scale structures of SmC* variant phases by resonant x-ray diffraction and optical probes Invited Speaker: Since the identification of antiferroelectric response in one liquid crystal compound having large polarization by Chandani \textit{et al}., considerable experimental and theoretical effort has been aimed to gain a much better understanding of the molecular orientation order within each phases and associated molecular interactions. Employing polarization-analyzed resonant x-ray diffraction and specially-designed state-of-the-art ellipsometry systems, we have identified the molecular arrangements in three new SmC* variant phases, namely, SmC(alpha1)*, SmC(FI2)*, and SmC(FI1)*. Moreover, guided by our proposed phenomenological model to explain the stability of these phases, we have developed a novel experimental method to identify a new mesophase, namely, SmC(alpha2)* by employing an optical probe (wavelength = 633nm) to obtain an incommensurate nano-scale helical pitch structure with pitch length $<$ 11nm. Collaborators of this project: P. Mach, P. Johnson, D. Olson, A. Cady, X. F. Han, L. S. Hirst, A. M. Levelut, P. Barois, H. T. Nguyen, J. W. Goodby, M. Hird, H. F. Gleeson, L. Furenlid, W. Caliebe, and R. Pindak. [Preview Abstract] |
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