Effect of pressure on strongly polar liquid crystals

Abstract

The effect of pressure on several mesogens which possess a strongly polar terminal group (CN or NO2) is studied. In all cases the partially bilayer smectic A (Ad) gets bounded while the nematic phase gets more stabilised at high pressures. In the case of reentrant nematogens, the maximum pressure of smectic stability is seen to be related to the temperature range of the nematic phase at 1 bar