Elliptic phases: a study of the nonlinear elasticity of twist-grain boundaries

Christian D Santangelo; Randall D Kamien

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.137801

Elliptic phases: a study of the nonlinear elasticity of twist-grain boundaries

Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Apr 7;96(13):137801. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.137801. Epub 2006 Apr 7.

Authors

Christian D Santangelo¹, Randall D Kamien

Affiliation

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6396, USA.

PMID: 16712038
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.137801

Abstract

We develop an explicit and tractable representation of a twist-grain-boundary phase of a smectic-A liquid crystal. This allows us to calculate the interaction energy between grain boundaries and the relative contributions from the bending and compression deformations. We discuss the special stability of the pi/2 grain boundaries and discuss the relation of this structure to the Schwarz D surface.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Biomechanical Phenomena
Elasticity
Liquid Crystals / chemistry*
Models, Theoretical*
Nonlinear Dynamics*
Phase Transition*