The twist-bend nematic phase of bent mesogenic dimers and its mixtures

ORAL

Abstract

Binary mixtures of the twist-bend nematic-forming liquid crystal CB7CB with the prototypical rod-like liquid crystal 5CB exhibit a twist-bend nematic phase with properties similar to those reported for neat CB7CB. The linear dependence of the phase transition temperature on concentration indicates that these binary mixtures are nearly ideal. We confirm the presence of nanoscale modulations of the molecular orientation in the mixtures by freeze-fracture transmission electron microscopy (FFTEM). We devise and implement a statistical approach to quantitatively measure the ground state pitch of the twist-bend phase and its mixtures using FFTEM. The addition of 5CB generally shifts the measured ground-state pitch distributions towards larger pitch. The pitch apparently increases discontinuously at higher 5CB concentrations.

*This work was supported by NSF MRSEC Grant 0820579, by Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter Postdoctoral Fellowship Award OCG5711B, and by ED GAANN Award P200A120014.

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Authors

  • Michael Tuchband

    • ;
    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Min Shuai

    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Keri Graber

    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Dong Chen

    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Leo Radzihovsky

    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Arthur Klittnick

    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Lee Foley

    • Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Alyssa Scarbrough

    • Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Jan Porada

    • Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Mark Moran

    • Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Eva Korblova

    • Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado Boulder

  • David Walba

    • Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Matthew Glaser

    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Joesph Maclennan

    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder

  • Noel Clark

    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder