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Phase Diagrams For The Blue Phases Of Highly Chiral Liquid Crystals, M. B. Bowling, Peter J. Collings, C. J. Booth, J. W. Goodby
Phase Diagrams For The Blue Phases Of Highly Chiral Liquid Crystals, M. B. Bowling, Peter J. Collings, C. J. Booth, J. W. Goodby
Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works
Polarizing microscopy and optical-activity measurements are used to determine the phase diagram for the blue phases of chiral-racemic mixtures of terephthaloyloxy-bis-4-(2'-methylbutyl) benzoate. Contrary to an earlier report, it is the second blue phase (BP II) rather than the first blue phase (BP 1) that is not stable relative to the other blue phases at high chirality. With this development, all phase diagrams for the blue phases reported to date have the same topology. Using similar data for two other highly chiral systems, it is found that a simple scaling of the temperature and chiral-fraction axes produces phase diagrams in quantitative …
Optical Activity In The Smectic-A Phase Of A Highly Chiral Liquid Crystal, Joshua D. Rosenzweig , '93, Peter J. Collings
Optical Activity In The Smectic-A Phase Of A Highly Chiral Liquid Crystal, Joshua D. Rosenzweig , '93, Peter J. Collings
Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works
Optical-activity measurements in the smectic-A phase of various chiral-racemic mixtures of S-4-(2'-methylbutyl)phenyl-4'-n-octylbiphenyl-4-carboxylate (CE8) demonstrate that contributions from fluctuations in more than one chiral structural mode are important near the transition to the smectic-C* phase. Although these results are similar to earlier measurements in the isotropic phase of highly chiral liquid crystals, previous theoretical work points out that the nature of these fluctuations and the reason for the importance of the second structural mode are very different. Because the present measurements are reported on mixtures of varying chirality, they provide a stringent test of the theory. Agreement between theory and experiment …