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Updated: May 5, 2026

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Comment on "Coarsening in bent-core liquid crystals: a molecular dynamics study" by N. Birdi, N. B. Wilding, S. Puri
Wojciech Tomczyk1, Piotr Kubala2
1Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences, PL-31342 Krakow, Poland. wojciech.tomczyk@ifj.edu.pl.
Abstract:
In the study by Birdi et al. molecular dynamics simulations were employed to investigate the coarsening dynamics of bent-core liquid crystals with a focus on the phase transition from a polar smectic X phase to the chiral twist-bend phase. A key finding is the emergence of an intermediate splay-bend phase before the system reaches the stable twist-bend phase. In this comment, we rectify the erroneous assumption that led to the improper conclusions and elucidate that the intermediate system studied by Birdi et al. is either a disordered smectic X (banana phase B1) or splay-bend smectic.
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