Olson D A, Cady A, Weissflog W, Nguyen H T, Huang C C
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2001 Nov;64(5 Pt 1):051713. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.64.051713. Epub 2001 Oct 26.
Null-transmission ellipsometry has been performed on free-standing films of one compound in the liquid crystal B2 phase. We have studied films of thickness from 1 to 121 layers. One of the compounds used has an unusually wide 59 K window for the B2 phase. The tilt angle was investigated as a function of temperature and found to be constant over this temperature range to within our resolution of 1 degrees. The one-layer films studied exhibit the same structure as the thicker films, and have helped us to refine the optical model for the B2 phase. For thin films we find that modeling a single smectic layer as two uniaxial layers is a better description of the data than a single biaxial layer, but that for thick films the model used does not effect the simulated result appreciably. Preliminary results also find that the surface layers are less tilted than the interior layers, in contrast to rodlike liquid crystals, which show an enhanced surface tilt.
