双轴性向列相液晶的相变理论

假设一双轴性向列相液晶分子简单相互作用模型，利用平均场理论，得到从各向同性相至单轴向列相、单轴向列相至双轴向列相的相变. 结果表明，在一定温度范围内，分子形状的非轴对称性可导致系统双轴向列相的产生. 在核磁共振实验中，导出双轴向列相序参数与谱线分裂频率间的一般关系，并讨论序参数测量性的可能性. 关键词： 向列相液晶 相变     

A Hierarchy of Defects in Biaxial Nematics

We study the topological properties of the manifolds which describe uniaxial and biaxial nematics in order to compare and classify all types of bulk and surface defects that can arise in a nematic liquid crystal. We explain how topological charges can be assigned both to isotropic defects in uniaxial nematics and to uniaxial defects in biaxial nematics; we further see how it is possible to distinguish between isolated surface defects and surface defects which extend in the bulk, and between surface defects which can relax in the bulk and defects forced to stay on the surface. Received: 28 November 1994 / Accepted: 30 September 1996     

Investigation of the influence of molecule deformation on the dynamics and collective excitation spectra in nematic liquid crystals

The generalization of dynamic equations in uniaxial and biaxial nematic liquid crystals is obtained yielding an approach accounting for the deformation of structural elements of these media. Collective excitation spectra are calculated and their angular dependence is established. The possibility of propagation of one, two, and three acoustic waves in nematics is predicted, and extreme angular characteristics of these waves are elucidated. Results of investigation are compared with available experimental data and satisfactory agreement between them is demonstrated. Low-frequency asymptotics of two-time Green’s functions of uniaxial nematics are calculated. It is found that their structure depends essentially on the character of spatial anisotropy of the considered condensed medium and the shape of molecules. Polarization specific features of acoustic waves in uniaxial nematics are studied. It is shown that the first and second sounds are the superposition of the longitudinal and transverse components. The ratio of amplitudes of these components as a function of angle between the wave vector and the anisotropy axis is established.     

Bound states of linear defects in biaxial nematics and superfluid liquids

It is shown that linear defects in biaxial nematics may form dynamically stable bound states if these defects are linked, almost parallel, and repel one another. Such a situation is possible for pairs of linear defects with a certain topology. This effect can also be observed for nearly parallel vortices in superfluid liquids and superconductors.     

Light transmission at the uniaxial-biaxial lyotropic nematics phase transitions

Results are reported on light transmission versus the temperature near the phase transitions between lyotropic nematics. Strong pretransitional effects are observed when the phase transitions occur between biaxial nematic and uniaxial phases. The light is strongly depolarized both at the calamitic-biaxial and at biaxial-discotic phase transitions. The results are qualitatively explained.     

梳型高分子聚合物向列相液晶的相变

本文根据Freiser关于向列相液晶分子相互作用模型,利用平均场理论,建立了梳型高分子聚合物向列相液晶分子的哈密顿量,导出序参数自洽方程,得到各向同性相至单轴向列相以及单轴至双轴向列相的相变,结果表明,当分子主、侧链耦合项中排斥作用及主、侧链中较强向列相场的场强增大时,单轴至双轴向列相相变温度升高,并从一级相变逐渐变为二级相变。 关键词：     

A biaxial nematic gel phase in aqueous vanadium pentoxide suspensions

Aqueous suspensions of V₂O₅ ribbons are one of the very few examples of mineral liquid crystals. In the concentrated regime, we show that these ribbons organize in a biaxial nematic gel phase. A Couette shear cell was used to produce a well oriented sample for in situ synchrotron X-ray scattering studies. We observed two perpendicular anisotropic sections of reciprocal space, which proves the biaxial symmetry of the nematic order. The thermodynamic and flow properties of the biaxial nematic are well described by hard-core theories. We suggest the use of a shear geometry to produce and investigate single domains of other biaxial nematics, reported but still questioned in the literature. Received 26 May 1999     

The elastic anisotropy of nematic elastomers

We examine the robustness of order in nematic elastomers under mechanical strains imposed along and perpendicularly to the director when director rotation is prohibited. In contrast to electric and magnetic fields applied to conventional nematics, mechanical fields are shown theoretically and experimentally to greatly affect the degree of nematic order and related quantities. Unlike in liquid nematics, one can impose fields perpendicular to the director, thereby inducing biaxial order which should be susceptible to experimental detection. Nematic elastomers with unchanging director and degree of order should theoretically have the same elastic moduli for longitudinal and transverse extensions. This is violated when nematic order is permitted to relax in response to strains. Near the transition we predict the longitudinal modulus to be smaller than the transverse modulus; at lower temperatures the converse is true, with a crossover a few degrees below the transition. The differences are ascribed to the different temperature dependence of the stiffness of uniaxial and biaxial order. We synthesised side chain single-crystal nematic polymer networks, performed DSC, X-ray, birefringence, and thermo-mechanical characterisations, and then obtained linear moduli from stress-strain measurements. Received 29 September 2000     

弹性形变对丝状相液晶相变的影响

应用Saupe形式的弹性自由能,研究了简单的扭曲,展曲和弯曲形变对相变的影响.结果表明,弹性形变可以产生从各向同性相至双轴丝状相的一级相变,对螺状相液晶,当系统手征性增加并超过某一临界值时,一级相变可过渡到二级相变. 关键词：     

Enhancement by polydispersity of the biaxial nematic phase in a mixture of hard rods and plates

The phase diagram of a polydisperse mixture of uniaxial rodlike and platelike hard parallelepipeds is determined for aspect ratios kappa=5 and 15. All particles have equal volume, and polydispersity is introduced in a highly symmetric way. The corresponding binary mixture is known to have a biaxial phase for kappa=15, but to be unstable against demixing into two uniaxial nematics for kappa=5. The phase diagram for kappa=15 is qualitatively similar to that of the binary mixture, regardless of the amount of polydispersity, while for kappa=5 a sufficient amount of polydispersity stabilizes the biaxial phase. This provides clues for designing an experiment to observe this long searched biaxial phase.     

Effects of fields and anchoring on biaxial nematic ordering

Symmetry of a nematic liquid crystal phase is broken by an anchoring wall and also by an external field. Nematic system sandwiched between biaxial anchoring walls is introduced as a correspondent to a bulk nematic system exposed to a couple of fields, an electric field and a magnetic one in directions perpendicular to each other, and thermal behaviours of the system are studied. The crossover between a homeotropic structure and homogeneous one occurs, similarly to the bulk system in the fields, in which the anchoring condition of coexistence is shown to have the same expression as the one at the bulk. As to a characteristic phenomenon at the sandwiched system, it is proved that an appearance of a biaxial nematic order suppresses a uniaxial nematic order. A surface transition, i.e., a wetting phenomenon is shown to occur also in the biaxial nematics, even though the uniaxial order is suppressed therein.     

混合排列向列相液晶薄盒中–1/2向错引起的有序重构的扩散

基于Landau-de Gennes理论, 利用松弛迭代法, 研究了混合排列向列相液晶薄盒中–1/2向错引起的有序重构的扩散现象, 给出了–1/2向错的核结构、双轴性结构, 以及盒厚减小时有序重构的扩散. 当盒厚小于15ξ时, 随着盒厚的减小, 向错范围和有序重构区域沿基板方向迅速扩散; 当盒厚减小到临界厚度10ξ时, 有序重构的范围扩散到整个液晶盒中, 以向错中心所对应的平面为界, 指向矢一部分垂面排列, 另一部分沿面排列. 本文的研究对拓扑缺陷对向列相液晶中的亚微米胶体粒子的调节作用具有一定的理论指导意义. 关键词： 混合排列向列相液晶薄盒 –1/2向错 有序重构扩散 松弛迭代法     

Molecular theoretic study of Freedericksz transition. Symmetry breaking of oblique axial order

Freedericksz transition, which is usually analyzed by an elastic theory, is studied on the basis of statistical mechanical ground, where nematics with positive dielectric anisotropy in homogeneous anchoring cell is exposed to an electric field in the direction of wall normal. In low temperature region, an oblique axial symmetry breaking occurs, which is nothing but the Freedericksz transition. In high temperature and high field region, biaxial nematic phase with principal axis parallel to the field direction at interior area of the system is proved to appear. A phase diagram on the field versus temperature plane is obtained and compared with the one at a bulk with common biaxial symmetry, where both of electric and magnetic fields are applied in directions perpendicular to each other. In the latter, no symmetry breaking occurs, in contrast with the former case above-mentioned, and the reason why this difference occurs is elucidated.     

Thermotropic biaxial nematic liquid crystals

We have synthesized liquid crystal (LC) mesogens based on a nonlinear oxadiazole unit that exhibit nematic phases near 200 degrees C. Polarized microscopy and conoscopy indicate that these LCs are biaxial nematics. Unambiguous and quantitative evidence for biaxiality is achieved using 2H NMR spectroscopy. "2D powder" spectra, obtained by rotating 2H-labeled samples about an axis perpendicular to the magnetic field at approximately 200 Hz, yield phase biaxiality parameters of approximately 0.1 when coupled with rigorous and proven simulations.     

Reduction theory for symmetry breaking with applications to nematic systems

We formulate Euler–Poincaré and Lagrange–Poincaré equations for systems with broken symmetry. We specialize the general theory to present explicit equations of motion for nematic systems, ranging from single nematic molecules to biaxial liquid crystals. The geometric construction applies to order parameter spaces consisting of either unsigned unit vectors (directors) or symmetric matrices (alignment tensors). On the Hamiltonian side, we provide the corresponding Poisson brackets in both Lie–Poisson and Hamilton–Poincaré formulations. The explicit form of the helicity invariant for uniaxial nematics is also presented, together with a whole class of invariant quantities (Casimirs) for two-dimensional incompressible flows.     

Light scattering by liquid crystals under pressure variations: Application to blood pressure measurements

The variation of the light scattered by mixtures of liquid crystals under pressure variations has been studied. The best results are obtained with a mixture of cholesterics and nematics. The application of the phenomena to blood pressure measurement is considered.     

3D Icosahedral aperiodic packings of spheres of different diameters from discrete icosahedral crystals

General results for transient pattern dynamics in the context of spinodal decomposition as well as domain-wall formation in the Fréedericksz transition in nematics are reviewed. The question of wavelength selection and the relevance of finite-size effects in this issue are considered in a general model of transient pattern dynamics. A finite-size scaling law for domain growth is shown to be satisfied by this model.     

Theory of nine elastic constants of biaxial nematics

In this paper, a rotational invariant of interaction energy between two biaxial-shaped molecules is assumed and in the mean field approximation, nine elastic constants for simple distortion patterns in biaxial nematics are derived in terms of the thermal average （Dmn^（l）） （Dm＇n＇^（l＇））, where Dmn^（l） is the Wigner rotation matrix. In the lowest order terms, the elastic constants depend on coefficients Γ,Γ＇, λ, order parameters Q0 = Q0（D00^（2）） ＋Q2（D02^（2）＋D0-2^（2）） and Q2 = Q0（D20^（2）） ＋ Q2（D22^（2）＋D2-2^（2））. Here Γ and Γ＇ depend on the function form of molecular interaction energy vj′j″j （τ12） and probability function fk′k″k （τ12）, where r12 is the distance between two molecules, and λ is proportional to temperature. Q0 and Q2 are parameters related to multiple moments of molecules. Comparing these results with those obtained from Landau-de Gennes theory, we have obtained relationships between coefficients, order parameters used in both theories. In the special case of uniaxial nematics, both results are reduced to a degenerate case where K11=K33.     

Solution of nonlinear strain and fracture problems for materials in complex stress states

Using the Pisarenko-Lebedev criterion, equations of ultimate failure strain under complex static and low-cycle loading were derived and were given experimental grounds for different types of biaxial loads. Experimental and calculation data are presented on the use of a generalized equivalence condition to solve problems of crack mechanics for complex stress states. Models and methods of determination of the crack direction, path, velocity and growth time under mixed biaxial loading are considered.