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Updated: Dec 17, 2025

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Phase transitions of heliconical smectic-C and heliconical nematic phases in banana-shaped liquid crystals
1Department of Physics and Information Technology, Faculty of Computer Science and Systems Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Kawazu 680-4, Iizuka, Fukuoka 820-8502, Japan.
Abstract:
A mean-field theory is introduced to describe heliconical nematic (N_{TB}), heliconical smectic-C (S_{m}C_{TB}), and biaxial heliconical smectic-C (S_{m}C_{TB,b}) phases with mirror symmetry breaking. We extend our previous theories of the N_{TB} phase to the heliconical smectic-C phases, by taking into account one-dimensional spatial ordering of smectic layers. The calculated phase diagrams on the temperature-alkyl chain length plane show a rich variety of phase transitions: first- and second-order N_{TB}-S_{m}C_{TB} transitions, etc., including tricritical, tetracritical, and multicritical points. Our theory is qualitatively consistent with an experimental phase diagram.
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