Liquids, Crystals and Liquid Crystals

JUL 01, 1989

Concepts developed to explain melting in two dimensions and multicritical phenomena in three dimensions lead to a detailed model for the growth and structures of smectic liquid crystal materials.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881175

Joel D. Brock

Robert J. Birgeneau

J. David Litster

Amnon Aharony

In thinking about the states of condensed matter, we usually consider two extremes. At one extreme are crystalline solids, in which atoms form a perfectly periodic array that extends to infinity in three directions. At the other extreme are fluids or glasses, in which the atoms or molecules are completely disordered and the system is both orientationally and positionally isotropic—that is, the materials look the same when viewed from any direction.

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A very recent book on smectic liquid crystals is P. S. Pershan, Structure of Liquid Crystal Phases, World Scientific, Singapore (1988).

More about the Authors

Joel D. Brock. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Robert J. Birgeneau. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

J. David Litster. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Amnon Aharony. Tel Aviv University, Israel.