Eur. Phys. J. E 6, 157-161 (2001)
Optical activity measurements in the smectic blue phases
Eric Grelet1, Peter J. Collings2, Min-Hui Li3 and Huu-Tinh Nguyen41 Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, UMR 8502, Université Paris-Sud, F-91405 Orsay Cedex, France
2 Department of Physics & Astronomy, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081, USA
3 Institut Curie-Section de Recherche, UMR 168, 11 rue Pierre et Marie Curie, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
4 Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal, UPR 8641, Avenue Albert Schweitzer, F-33600 Pessac, France
grelet@brandeis.edu
(Received 25 May 2001)
Abstract
Optical activity measurements have been performed on the
smectic blue phases (
), which are a new kind of chiral
liquid crystal.
exhibit both three-dimensional
orientational order, like the classical blue phases, and smectic
positional order. Thus, they can be viewed as the three-dimensional
counterpart of the twist grain boundary phases. A comparison
with the optical activity of the classical blue phases is carried out,
and an estimation of the
lattice parameter is reported for the
first time.
61.30.-v - Liquid crystals.
78.20.Ek - Optical activity.
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2001
