Some properties of liquid crystals

The present paper contains the results of measuring the velocity and absorption of ultrasonic waves in materials of the homologous series of dialkoxyazoxybenzene. The existence of pretransition states in liquid-mesophase and mesophase-mesophase temperature transitions was detected for the first time. Regular fluctuations of the velocity and absorption were noted. The ferroelectric properties of the nematic and smectic phases of para-normal octyloxybenzoic acid (domains, hysteresis effects) were discovered. Experimental data on the scattering of light by cholesteric-type liquid crystals and their mixtures were obtained. It is shown that the sequence and rate of change of specimen color depended strictly on temperature.