Critical Adsorption at the Free Surface of a Smectic Liquid Crystal Possessing a Second-Order Phase Transition

Ch. Bahr; C. J. Booth; D. Fliegner; J. W. Goodby

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.77.1083

Critical Adsorption at the Free Surface of a Smectic Liquid Crystal Possessing a Second-Order Phase Transition

Ch. Bahr, C. J. Booth, D. Fliegner, and J. W. Goodby

Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 1083 – Published 5 August 1996

Abstract

The surface-induced molecular tilt near the second-order smectic-A (untilted)–smectic-C (tilted) transition is studied in freely suspended films consisting of hundreds of molecular layers. As the bulk transition temperature $T_{c}$ is approached from above, the overall amount of the surface-induced tilt, which is far above $T_{c}$ restricted to a few molecular layers near the surface, grows in a divergencelike behavior. The experimental results are compared with the Fisher–de Gennes model of critical adsorption.