High pressure studies of materials exhibiting fluid to hexatic phase transitions in liquid crystals

Abstract

Of late, there is much interest in experimental studies on liquid crystalline materi- als exhibiting transitions from a fluid to the hexatic phase. While a large amount of experimental data are available on hexatic systems at atmospheric pressure very few investigations at high pressures have been reported. We have carried out detailed high pressure investigations on materials exhibiting smectic A-hexatic B, smectic A-smectic F, smectic C-smectic I and smectic C-smectic F transitions. The effect of pressure on these different kinds of smectic phases, their stability along with other main features of these phase diagrams are discussed.