Orientability of the Minor Director of Homeotropically Aligned Smectic‐A Elastomers in External Mechanical Fields

We present studies on bulk smectic‐A copolymer networks with end‐on attached homeotropically oriented mesogens that show spontaneous optical biaxiality at room temperature. Orthoscopic and conoscopic investigations under uniaxial extension in the layer planes give first evidence of the orientability of the minor director in mechanical fields yielding biaxial monodomains with 3‐d orientational long‐range order of all three principle axes. This is an important step towards the synthesis of permanently oriented biaxial monodomain elastomers for which highly interesting mechanical and optical properties are expected.     

Biaxial phase and coexistence of the two uniaxial nematic phases in the system sodium dodecyl sulphate–decanol–D2O

The system sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS)/decanol (DeOH)/water presents, with temperature increase, an unusual phase transition between a stable biaxial phase and a coexistence region of the two uniaxial nematic phases (discotic N_D + cylindrical N_C). This has been detected previously by several methods for a sample with water/SDS molar ratio M_w = 36. Here, this system is investigated changing the ratio M_w to 32, where previously the coexistence region was reported after a discotic N_D phase, without the biaxial phase. We report now the existence of a biaxial N_B in the temperature range of ~2°C, defining for both values of M_w and the phase sequence as N_B – (N_D + N_C) – N_C. The change in temperature is followed by conoscopic and orthoscopic optical techniques and also analysed through the curve obtained by the technique of digital image processing of the textures, which reveals a continuous transition N_D – N_B – (N_D + N_C). While the biaxial phase is stable for at least 10 hours, in a reproducible way, the coexistence region evolves with time, and drops of the discotic phase grow immersed in a N_C matrix. Results are explained in terms of recent theories dealing with stabilisation of mixtures of cylinders and discs.     

Smectic layer structure of ferroelectric liquid crystal formed between fine polymer fibres

This paper describes the alignment of ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) structures formed between aligned polymer fibres, where the FLC smectic layers are determined by polarising microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The FLC/polymer composite films were formed from a nematic phase FLC/monomer solution using a photopolymerisation-induced phase separation method. It was found that bending of the FLC smectic layers was induced in both the film plane and the cross-sectional plane at the phase transition from smectic A to chiral smectic C of the FLC material. The light transmittance properties of the composite film between crossed polarizers was analysed by light propagation simulation in several optical anisotropic media, based on the evaluated smectic layer model.     

Effect of the presence of strong and weak electrolytes on the existence of uniaxial and biaxial nematic phases in lyotropic mixtures

The lyotropic mixture of potassium laurate/decanol/water presenting only the uniaxial nematic calamitic phase was doped with one strong (potassium chloride, KCl) and 11 weak electrolytes with phenyl-rings (DL-mandelic acid, benzoic acid, DL-phenyllactic acid, phenylacetic acid, phenol and phenylmethanol) and with cyclohexyl-ring (RS-hexahydromandelic acid, cyclohexanecarboxylic acid, cyclohexaneacetic acid, cyclohexanol and cyclohexylmethanol), separately. We also chose two nonpolar dopant molecules, benzene and cyclohexane, for the comparison of them with weak electrolytes, since they are located in the hydrocarbon core of the micelle. The nematic phase sequences, in particular the presence of the biaxial nematic phase, were investigated as a function of the dopant molar concentration and temperature. The laser conoscopy and small-angle X-ray scattering techniques were used to characterise the different nematic phases. Weak electrolytes having –COOH group as polar part were found to be very effective in stabilising the three nematic phases (two uniaxial and a biaxial). Guest molecules with only the –OH group did not show any effect on the stabilisation of other nematic phases. The experimental results are interpreted considering the screening effect of the hydrophilic parts of the dopants on the repulsion between the polar heads of the main amphiphilic molecules at micelle surfaces. This process favours the increase of the more flat micellar surfaces of micelles, which triggers the orientational fluctuations responsible for the biaxial and discotic nematic phases.     

Effect of the surfactant alkyl chain length on the stabilisation of lyotropic nematic phases

Lyotropic quaternary mixtures of potassium alkanoates (KCx) and sodium alkyl sulphates (NaCxS), where x is the number of carbon atoms in their alkyl chains, were prepared to investigate the effect of the surfactant alkyl chain length on the stabilisation of lyotropic nematic phases. The lyotropic mixtures investigated were formed by the dissolution of KCx (NaCxS) surfactants in the mixture of Rb₂SO₄/1-decanol/water (Na₂SO₄/1-decanol/water), separately. The uniaxial-to-biaxial nematic phase transitions were identified from the temperature dependence of the birefringences of the nematic phases by means of laser conoscopy. The micelle dimensions were obtained from small-angle X-ray scattering measurements. It was observed that the increase in the surfactant alkyl chain length causes the micellar growth in the plane perpendicular to the main amphiphile bilayer. The surfactant alkyl chain length plays a key role on the shape anisotropy of micelles, which triggers the orientational fluctuations that are responsible for the stabilisation of the different lyotropic nematic phases.     

Optical inhomogeneities in Li2B4O7 single crystals

Lithium tetraborate, Li₂B₄O₇ (LTB) crystals were grown by Czochralski technique. It belongs to tetragonal system with lattice parameter a = b = 9.479 Å, c = 10.286 Å. Transmission range of this crystal is 170 nm – 3300 nm. This material has attracted much attention because of its application in higher harmonic generation of Nd:YAG laser and radiation dosimetry. The grown crystals were characterized for their optical inhomogeneity using etch pit study, hardness, conoscopy, interferometry, and UV‐VIS transmittance techniques. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Director dynamics of uniformly aligned nematic liquid crystals in transient shear flow

We have developed a modular rheo-optical apparatus to study the flow properties of liquid crystals. Its main components are shearing device, strong magnetic field, and optical microscope. We performed experiments on well defined initial morphologies with uniform molecular alignment. The monodomains were achieved with strong magnetic fields (4.7T). Time-resolved conoscopy is the primary optical technique in our investigation. We propose a simple relation between the distribution of alignment angles over the sample thickness and the conoscopically measured angle, to quantitatively measure the alignment angle in shear flow.We followed the relaxation of a shear-induced splay deformation in small molecule model systems (N-(p-methoxybenzylidene) p-butylaniline (MBBA), pentyl-cyano-biphenyl (5 CB) and a commercially available mixture OM14244). We define a rotational director diffusivity (K _s splay elastic constant.i7s splay viscosity) from the relaxation process and devised a model, based on the diffusion equation to determine their values.The director alignment behavior of the small molecule liquid crystals (SMLC's) in shear flow is well described by the two-dimensional Leslie-Ericksen model. The effect of director elasticity can clearly be seen in our experiments, resulting in a decrease of the steady state alignment angle at smaller Ericksen numbers.We found that there is no strain rate dependence of the director vorticity from 0.002/s to 2/s for poly-(-benzyl-D/L-glutamate) (PBG). We determined ₂/₃ = –44 for a 2007o solution of 280000 molecular weight PBG in m-cresol at 20°C. The conoscopic interference pattern vanished after 8 strain units from an initially planar alignment and shearing could be reversed up to 10 strain units to completely recover the initial monodomain.Presented at 4th Meeting of European Rheologists, Sept. 4–9, 1994, Seville, SpainDedicated to Prof. H. Janeschitz-Kriegl at the occasion of his 70th birthday.     

Rotation of liquid crystalline macromolecules in shear flow and shear-induced periodic orientation patterns

We have measured the shear-induced rotation of the nematic director in a liquid crystalline polymer using poly benzyl glutamate (PBG) as model system. PBG is a well characterized synthetic poly ( amino acid) with rigid chain architecture and well defined conformations. For the experiments it is important to start out with a sample in which the molecules are highly aligned with a uniform director. This so-called monodomain morphology is obtained by use of strong magnetic fields and surface modifications of the sample holders. When shearing the monodomain at a constant rate, the macromolecules rotate initially homogeneously until a periodic director pattern develops. These spatially periodic structures emerge in a narrow range of shear strain and, as shearing continues, disintegrate into a chaotic texture. By varying the initial monodomain director with respect to the flow direction (but within the shear planes) we could show that the periodic patterns do not depend on the shear direction; they are governed by the director of the initial monodomain. We observe conoscopically that at high shear rates the texture becomes uniformly aligned. The molecules are aligned preferentially with an angle of about 4° to the shear direction (against vorticity direction). Interestingly, this agrees very well with predictions made by Larson (1990).Dedicated to Prof. Dr. J. Meissner on the occasion of his retirement from the chair of Polymer Physics at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich, Switzerland     

Nematic liquid crystals in frequency and amplitude modulated electric fields

In this paper we study peculiarities of behaviour of a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) in an electric field consisting of two harmonics with different amplitudes and frequencies. The most interesting result is the experimental observation of high frequency, stabilization of a low frequency electrohydrodynamic instability in the NLC. A method of measurement of the one frequency instability threshold has been proposed. The beating regime of the two frequency electric field was also studied. The theory developed provides an explanation for all the experimental results.