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Updated: May 4, 2026

Measuring Magnetically-Tuned Ferroelectric Polarization in Liquid Crystals
Published on: August 15, 2018
Peculiarity of the interaction of small particles in smectic liquid crystals
O M Tovkach1, Jun-ichi Fukuda2, B I Lev3
1Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics, NAS of Ukraine, Metrologichna 14-b, Kyiv 03680, Ukraine.
Abstract:
We investigate the peculiarity of the interaction between particles immersed into a smectic liquid crystal with a layered structure. Such a structure of a liquid crystal imposes restrictions on possible deformations of the layer displacement field. Previous studies neglect this fact and give improper results for the interaction potential within one molecular layer. The present paper shows that such restrictions yield an interaction potential substantially different from those of previous studies. Oscillatory behavior, which was not present in the potentials of previous studies, might give rise to superstructures of immersed particles with finite interparticle distance.
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