Abstract
Results of the first heat-capacity measurements of free-standing liquid-crystal films are presented. The nature of the smectic-A-hexatic-B transition of n-butyl-4′-n-hexyloxybiphenyl-4-carboxylate (46OBC) has been studied for films from about ten to thousands of smectic layers thick. Convolution fitting of thick-film results has given values of the critical exponent and amplitude ratio consistent with bulk-sample fitting results. Thin-film heat-capacity anomalies are asymmetric in shape, in contrast to results for thick films.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1239-1242 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Physical review letters |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1986 |