Physics of liquid crystals embedded in silica gels
Name
50407138-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
7.51 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
38a57f51c5a8e13d5b6037c38527c938
Author(s)
Park, Sungil, 1967-
Advisor(s)
Robert J. Birgeneau.
Date Issued
2001
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Octylcyanobiphenyl (8CB) embedded in silica aerosil gels have been studied by means of high resolution X-ray scattering experiments. The silica particles form a hydrogen-bonded fractal gel network that introduces quenched disorder. As a result, the nematic to smectic-A transition is replaced by the growth of static short range smectic correlations. The X-ray scattering profile has two contributions: a thermal fluctuation term which resembles that of the pure liquid crystal and a static fluctuation term due to the random field that becomes important at low temperatures. The decrease of the smectic correlations with increasing silica density is consistent with theory and other experiments.
Description
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2001.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-130).
Subjects
Physics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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