A phenomenological free energy model is proposed to describe the behavior of smectic
liquid crystals, an intermediate phase that exhibits orientational order and layering at the …

Matter self-assembling into layers generates unique properties, including structures of
stacked surfaces, directed transport, and compact area maximization that can be highly …

Composed of microscopic layers that stack along one direction while maintaining fluid-like
positional disorder within layers, smectics are excellent systems for exploring topology …

Electric field driven instabilities of liquid crystals, such as electro-convections,
spatiotemporal chaos, backflows, and solitons are of great importance for both fundamental …

The anisotropic shape of calamitic liquid crystal (LC) particles results in distinct values of
energy when the nematogens are placed side by side or end to end. This anisotropy in …

Smectic liquid crystals are remarkable, beautiful examples of materials microstructure, with
ordered patterns of geometrically perfect ellipses and hyperbolas. The solution of the …

By means of a combination of equilibrium Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations
and nonequilibrium molecular dynamics we investigate the ordered, uniaxial phases (ie …

The free boundary of smectic A (SmA), nematic and isotropic liquid phases were studied
using a polarized optical microscope, an interferometric surface structure analyzer (ISSA) …

This work presents the first high-resolution nanoprofilometry study consisting of nanoscale
resolution surface profile measurements and high-quality visualization of a the free surface …