New Theory for Competing Interactions and Microstructures in Partially Ordered (Liquid-Crystalline) Phases

Summary

A summary of results from a unique statistical-physics theory to predict and explain competing interactions and resulting microstructures in some partially-ordered [in this case, liquid-crystalline (LC)] phases is presented. The static aspects of both partial orientational and partial positional ordering of the molecules into various microstructures in these phases (including the incommensurate smectic-Ad phase) can be understood in terms of various competing interactions (both entropic and energetic) involved in the packing together of the different molecular sub-units at given pressures and temperatures. These microstructures are predicted and explained (using no ad hoc or arbitrarily adjustable parameters) as a function of molecule chemical structure [including lengths and shapes (from bond lengths and angles), intramolecular rotations, site-site polarizabilities and pair potentials, dipole moments, etc.]. Theoretical results are presented for the nematic, re-entrant nematic, smectic-Ad, and smectic-Al LC phases and the isotropic liquid phase.