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Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4478–4481 (1998)

Kinetics of Phase Transition in an Anticlinic Liquid Crystal Induced by a Uniform Temperature Field: Growth in One Dimension

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X. Y. Wang1, Jian-feng Li2,*, Eliezer Gurarie2, S. Fan1, T. Kyu1, M. E. Neubert3, S. S. Keast3, and Charles Rosenblatt2
1Institute of Polymer Engineering, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 44325
2Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106
3Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242

Received 27 October 1997; published in the issue dated 18 May 1998

See accompanying Physics Focus

It is experimentally demonstrated that a transition from a synclinic to an anticlinic liquid crystal phase occurs via stable domain wall propagation after quenching in a uniform temperature field. Such a one-dimensional growth may be explained in terms of a nonlinear diffusion equation. The experiment provides the first example of free, one-dimensional growth in a system subjected to a pure and uniform temperature field.

© 1998 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.80.4478
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.80.4478
PACS:
64.70.Md

*Present address: Reveo Corp., Hawthorne, N.Y.

 
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