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Published on: October 31, 2019
Unusual temperature dependence of elastic constants of an ambient-temperature discotic nematic liquid crystal
D Venkata Sai1, G Mirri2, P H J Kouwer3
1School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad-500046, India. sdsp@uohyd.ernet.in.
Abstract:
We report the first experimental studies on the temperature dependence of viscoelastic properties of a room temperature discotic nematic liquid crystal. The splay elastic constant is greater than the bend elastic constant and both show unusual temperature and order parameter dependence. The rotational viscosity is remarkably larger than conventional calamitic liquid crystals. We provide a simple physical explanation based on the columnar short-range order to account for the the unusual temperature dependence of the elastic constants.
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