A molecular theory of smectic C liquid crystals made of rod-like molecules

Organic compounds exhibiting the smectic C phase are made of rod-like molecules that have dipolar groups with lateral components. We argue that the off-axis character of the lateral dipolar groups can account for tilt in layered smectics (SmC, SmC*, SmI etc.). We develop a mean-field theory of the smectic C phase based on a single-particle potential of the form U _C ∝ sin(2θ)cosφ, consistent with the biaxial nature of the phase, where θ and φ are the polar and azimuthal angles, respectively. The hard-rod interactions that favour the smectic A phase with zero tilt angle are also included. The theoretical phase diagrams compare favourably with experimental trends. Our theory also leads to the following results: i) a first-order smectic C to smectic A transition above some value of the McMillan parameter α, leading to a tricritical point on the smectic C to smectic A transition line and ii) a first-order smectic C to smectic C transition over a very small range of values of the model parameters. We have also extended the theory to include the next higher-order term in the tilting potential and to include the effect of different tilt angles for the molecular core and the chain in the SmC phase. Received 3 August 2002 RID="a" ID="a"Present address: Department of Physics, Vijaya College, R. V. Road, Bangalore - 560 004, India. RID="b" ID="b"e-mail: nvmadhu@rri.res.in