Journal ArticleDOI
Pretransitional Phenomena in the Isotropic Phase of a Nematic Liquid Crystal
T. W. Stinson,J. D. Litster +1 more
TLDR
In this article, the authors have observed a divergence of the magnetic birefringence, and a critical increase and slowing of the fluctuations in order in the isotropic phase of a nematic liquid crystal.Abstract:
We have observed a divergence of the magnetic birefringence, and a critical increase and slowing of the fluctuations in order in the isotropic phase of a nematic liquid crystal. Our results are quantitatively described by a mean-field model except for a critical region close to the ordering temperature where the fluctuations are so large that the meanfield approximation fails.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
On the Pretransitional Effects in Nematogens
TL;DR: In this article, the experimentally observed strong pretransitional effects in nematogens can be described in terms of a mean field theory if the free energy expansion is not truncated at the quadratic term.
Journal ArticleDOI
Magnetic-susceptibility measurements below a nearly-second-order nematic-isotropic phase transition in a lyotropic liquid crystal.
TL;DR: Magnetic-birefringence measurements were performed in the nematic phase of the binary lyotropic liquid crystal cesium perfluoro-octanoate and water within 75 mK of the superheating limit, indicating that director fluctuations may contribute a significant multiplicative factor to the average order parameter.
Journal ArticleDOI
The temperature dependence of Rayleigh-wing scattering from liquid crystalline p-methoxybenzylidene-p-n-butylaniline (MBBA)
TL;DR: In this paper, the temperature dependence of Rayleigh-wing scattering in nematic MBBA was investigated in terms of the orientational fluctuations of individual molecules, modified by coupling to neighboring molecules.