Publication: Synchrotron Studies of the First-Order Melting Transitions of Hexatic Monolayers and Multilayers in Freely Suspended Liquid-Crystal Films
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Date
1989
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American Physical Society
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Amador, S., Peter S. Pershan, H. Stragier, B. D. Swanson, D. J. Tweet, L. B. Sorensen, E. B. Sirota, G. E. Ice, and A. Habenschuss. 1989. Synchrotron studies of the first-order melting transitions of hexatic monolayers and multilayers in freely suspended liquid-crystal films. Physical Review A 39(5): 2703-2708.
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Abstract
Synchrotron x-ray diffraction has been used to study the surface and the interior hexatic-to-liquid (smectic-I to smectic-C) melting transitions of freely suspended liquid-crystal films of N-[4'-(n-heptyl)benzylidene]-4-(n-heptyl)aniline (7O.7) five molecular layers thick. Both the surface hexatic monolayers and the interior hexatic layers melt via hysteretic first-order transitions. After the two surface layers undergo a first-order transition to the smectic-I phase, the surface hexatic correlation length \(\xi\) evolves smoothly from \(\sim 100 to \sim 300 \mathring{A}\) with a roughly square-root form, \(\xi \sim \mid T-T_c \mid ^{1/2}\).
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