Liquid-Crystal Smectic with Six-Layer Periodic Structure

TL;DR

This paper confirms that a theoretical model based on free energy expansion accurately predicts the structure and phase sequence of a newly discovered six-layer polar smectic phase in liquid crystals.

Contribution

It demonstrates that an existing theoretical framework can successfully describe the experimentally observed six-layer smectic phase.

Findings

The six-layer phase is predicted by the theory.

The theory describes the phase structure accurately.

The phase sequence matches experimental observations.

Abstract

Recently Wang et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 027801 (2010)] discovered a new polar smectic phase with six-layer period (SmC*d6). In this manuscript, we demonstrate that the theory [Phys. Rev. E 67, 041716 (2003)] based on the free energy expansion with a two-component order parameter predicted the six-layer phase, describes its structure and the phase sequence observed in experiment [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 027801 (2010)].