Spatially resolved x-ray studies of liquid crystals with strongly developed bond-orientational order

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2015 Apr;91(4):042506. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.91.042506. Epub 2015 Apr 17.

Abstract

We present an x-ray study of freely suspended hexatic films of the liquid crystal 3(10)OBC. Our results reveal spatial inhomogeneities of the bond-orientational (BO) order in the vicinity of the hexatic-smectic phase transition and the formation of large-scale hexatic domains at lower temperatures. Deep in the hexatic phase up to 25 successive sixfold BO order parameters have been directly determined by means of angular x-ray cross-correlation analysis (XCCA). Such strongly developed hexatic order allowed us to determine higher order correction terms in the scaling relation predicted by the multicritical scaling theory over a full temperature range of the hexatic phase existence.