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Quasi-long-range order in nematics confined in random porous media
1Condensed Matter Physics Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel and and Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, 142432 Chernogolovka, Moscow region, Russia.
Abstract:
We study the effect of random porous matrices on the ordering in nematic liquid crystals. The randomness destroys orientational long-range order and drives the liquid crystal into a glass state. We predict two glass phases, one of which possesses quasi-long-range order. In this state the correlation length is infinite and the correlation function of the order parameter obeys a power dependence on the distance. The small-angle light-scattering amplitude diverges but slower than in the bulk nematic. In the uniaxially strained porous matrices two new phases emerge. One type of strain induces an anisotropic quasi-long-range-ordered state while the other stabilizes nematic long-range order.
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