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Liquid Crystals Volume 39, 2012 - Issue 1
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Original Articles

Uniaxial to biaxial nematic phase transition in a bent-core thermotropic liquid crystal by polarising microscopy

Stephen J. Picken Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Department of Chemical Engineering, NanoStructured Materials, Delft, The NetherlandsCorrespondence[email protected]
,
Theo J. Dingemans Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft, The Netherlands
,
Louis A. Madsen Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Chemistry, Blacksburg, VA, USA
,
Oriano Francescangeli Dipartimento di Fisica e Ingegneria dei Materiali e del Territorio and CNISM, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy
&
Edward T. Samulski University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Chemistry, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Pages 19-23 | Received 31 Aug 2011, Accepted 10 Oct 2011, Published online: 01 Nov 2011
 
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Abstract

Polarising optical microscopy (POM) shows evidence for a reversible uniaxial nematic (NU) to biaxial nematic (NB) phase transition in a quiescent melt of bent-core mesogens (BCM). A second superimposed Schlieren texture, attributed to a second director field, grows into the NU phase on lowering the temperature and disappears again on heating, indicating a fully reversible NB to NU phase transition. This POM result together with recent X-ray data provides a new signature for the NB phase in this class of BCMs, and offers a new method for assessment of new biaxial nematic phases.

This article is part of the following collections:
The Luckhurst-Samulski Prize

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