The Influence of Disorder on Thermotropic Nematic Liquid Crystals Phase Behavior

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Vlad Popa-Nita¹  Ivan Gerlič² 

[1]Faculty of Physics, University of Bucharest, P. O. Box MG-11, Bucharest 077125, Romania

[2]Laboratory Physics of Complex Systems, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Maribor, Koroška 160, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia and Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

[3] E-Mails:

关键词: liquid crystals;    random field;    phase transitions;    disorder;    nematic-impurities mixture;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms10093971

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

We review the theoretical research on the influence of disorder on structure and phase behavior of condensed matter system exhibiting continuous symmetry breaking focusing on liquid crystal phase transitions. We discuss the main properties of liquid crystals as adequate systems in which several open questions with respect to the impact of disorder on universal phase and structural behavior could be explored. Main advantages of liquid crystalline materials and different experimental realizations of random field-type disorder imposed on liquid crystal phases are described.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2009 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland.