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Updated: Jul 16, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Sixfold bond orientational properties of a model liquid crystal in the dimensional crossover of B phases: a computer
Luca De Gaetani1, Alessandro Tani
1Dipartimento di Chimica, Università di Pisa, Via Risorgimento 35, I-56126 Pisa, Italy. degaetani@dcci.unipi.it
Abstract:
A wide range of NPT simulations of a bead necklace liquid crystal model in the crystal B, smectic B, smectic A, and nematic phases have been performed. Systems with up to 21 600 molecules have been studied to observe the behavior of slowly decaying spatial correlation functions. The pair correlation function and its in-plane restriction are consistent with a crystalline phase made of independent two-dimensional crystalline layers. Smectic B phase is studied by the bond orientational pair correlation functions g(6) and its extension g(6ext). The first reaches a constant value, which seems to rule out a classical hexatic phase. The latter shows a power-law decay within the layers: its typical decay exponent (eta(6ext)) is evaluated. Relationships between multiple harmonics of the C(6n) order parameter have been evaluated through the whole range of existence of B phases (crystalline and smectic): the extension to the crystalline phase holds and provides an excellent fit of the simulation data.
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