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Crystals
Special Issues
Structural and Optical Properties of Smectic Films
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Structural and Optical Properties of Smectic Films

A special issue of Crystals (ISSN 2073-4352). This special issue belongs to the section "Liquid Crystals".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2020) | Viewed by 4468

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Alexandre Zakharov

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Saint Petersburg Institute for Machine Sciences, The Russian Academy of Sciences, 199178 Saint Petersburg, Russia
Interests: liquid crystals; nanofluidics; optics of liquid crystals; hydrodynamics of liquid crystals; free-standing smectic films
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

One of the most interesting aspects of many smectic liquid crystals (LCs) is that, under appropriate conditions, they can form free-standing smectic films (FSSFs). In these films, thickness is quantified in units of layers, and a new class of phase transitions, when spontaneous layer-by-layer thinning transitions occur, has been observed. Because there is no substrate, these films represent an excellent model of low-dimensional systems for the study of surface effects as the film thickness is reduced. The surface tension is clearly of fundamental importance to the stability of these films. Moreover, the presence of the surface tension is believed to be responsible for intriguing surface-ordering phenomena exhibited by these films. Unlike the preferential surface melting exhibited by conventional solids, the FSSF/vapor interface appears to enhance the order of the surface layers so that they become ordered at temperatures well above the bulk SmA-Isotropic transition temperatures. Spontaneous layer-thinning transitions have been reported both for compounds exhibiting a first-order phase transition towards the isotropic phase, as well as for compounds that possess a second-order smectic-A-nematic phase transition. A great variety of phenomena can be observed in FSSFs: layer-thinning transitions, stepwise reduction of heat capacity, and sawtooth behavior of the surface tension upon heating the FSSFs above the bulk Sm-A-isotropic transition temperature.

We invite investigators to submit papers that discuss the key points dominating the structural and optical characteristics of free-standing smectic films, as well as the applications of different FSSFs, from theoretical calculations to material explorations and experimental viewing.

Dr. Alexandre Zakharov
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Crystals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Liquid crystals
  • Free standing smectic films
  • Structural and optical properties of FSSFs
  • Dynamical properties of FSSFs

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 6004 KiB  
Article
Capillary Flows of Nematic Liquid Crystal
by Dina V. Shmeliova, Sergey V. Pasechnik, Semen S. Kharlamov, Alexandre V. Zakharov, Eugeny P. Pozhidaev, Vadim A. Barbashov and Timofey P. Tkachenko
Crystals 2020, 10(11), 1029; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst10111029 - 11 Nov 2020
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2085
Abstract
In this paper we report the new experimental results on the rise of a liquid crystal in flat capillaries with inner photosensitive surfaces. The capillaries with different surface orientations were prepared by the use of the photo-alignment technique. Such a surface treatment makes [...] Read more.
In this paper we report the new experimental results on the rise of a liquid crystal in flat capillaries with inner photosensitive surfaces. The capillaries with different surface orientations were prepared by the use of the photo-alignment technique. Such a surface treatment makes it possible to eliminate the noncontrollable influence of a nanorelief on the wetting process, which takes place in the rubbing treatment technique previously used in similar experiments. The dynamics of the capillary rise of a nematic liquid crystal 5CB (4-cyano-4′-pentylbiphenyl) in vertical plane capillaries with photo-aligned substrates were studied for the first time. It was found that the stationary value of a contact angle weakly depends on the direction of a planar surface orientation relative to the direction of a capillary rise. It has been shown that the application of strong electric fields resulted in a decreasing of the contact angle. The results, obtained for the nematic liquid crystal, are compared with the results of an investigation of the capillary flow in a shock-free ferroelectric smectic phase. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural and Optical Properties of Smectic Films)
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Review

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47 pages, 1656 KiB  
Review
Structural, Optical and Dynamic Properties of Thin Smectic Films
by Izabela Śliwa and A. V. Zakharov
Crystals 2020, 10(4), 321; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst10040321 - 20 Apr 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1999
Abstract
The problem of predicting structural and dynamic behavior associated with thin smectic films, both deposited on a solid surface or stretched over an opening, when the temperature is slowly increased above the bulk transition temperature towards either the nematic or isotropic phases, remains [...] Read more.
The problem of predicting structural and dynamic behavior associated with thin smectic films, both deposited on a solid surface or stretched over an opening, when the temperature is slowly increased above the bulk transition temperature towards either the nematic or isotropic phases, remains an interesting one in the physics of condensed matter. A useful route in studies of structural and optical properties of thin smectic films is provided by a combination of statistical–mechanical theories, hydrodynamics of liquid crystal phases, and optical and calorimetric techniques. We believe that this review shows some useful routes not only for the further examining of the validity of a theoretical description of thin smectic films, both deposited on a solid surface or stretched over an opening, but also for analyzing their structural, optical, and dynamic properties. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structural and Optical Properties of Smectic Films)
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