Coupling between Smectic and Twist Modes in Polymer Intercalated Smectics

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the coupling between polymer orientation and smectic layer curvature affects the elastic properties of intercalated smectics, revealing renormalization effects on polymer twist modulus and cholesteric pitch.

Contribution

It introduces a model incorporating polymer-smectic coupling, showing how this interaction influences elastic moduli and cholesteric pitch in intercalated smectic systems.

Findings

Coupling leads to renormalization of polymer twist modulus.

Chiral polymers cause renormalization of cholesteric pitch.

Effective elastic energy includes polymer-smectic interaction effects.

Abstract

We analyse the elastic energy of an intercalated smectic where orientationally ordered polymers with an average orientation varying from layer to layer are intercalated between smectic planes. The lowest order terms in the coupling between polymer director and smectic layer curvature are added to the smectic elastic energy. Integration over the smectic degrees of freedom leaves an effective polymer twist energy that has to be included into the total polymer elastic energy leading to a fluctuational renormalization of the intercalated polymer twist modulus. If the polymers are chiral this in its turn leads to a renormalization of the cholesteric pitch.