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Published on: August 15, 2018
Partially Disordered Crystal Phases and Glassy Smectic Phases in Liquid Crystal Mixtures
Aleksandra Deptuch1, Anna Drzewicz1, Magdalena Urbańska2
1Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Radzikowskiego 152, PL-31342 Kraków, Poland.
None:
Three liquid crystalline mixtures were investigated, consisting of compounds abbreviated as MHPOBC and 3F5FPhF6 with molar ratios 0.9:0.1 (MIX5FF6-1), 0.75:0.25 (MIX5FF6-2), and 0.5:0.5 (MIX5FF6-3). The presence of the smectic A*, smectic C*, and smectic CA* phases was observed in all mixtures. The hexatic smectic XA* phase, present in pure MHPOBC, disappeared quickly with an increasing admixture of 3F5FPhF6. Vitrification of smectic CA* was observed for the equimolar mixture, with the glass transition temperature and fragility index comparable to the pure glassforming 3F5FPhF6 component. Partial crystallization to conformationally or orientationally disordered crystal phases was observed on cooling in two mixtures with a smaller fraction of 3F5FPhF6. Broadband dielectric spectroscopy was applied to study the relaxation times in smectic and crystal phases. Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann, Mauro-Yue-Ellison-Gupta-Allan, and critical-like models were applied for analysis of the α-relaxation time in supercooled smectic XA* and smectic CA* phases.
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