Eur. Phys. J. E (2006) 20: 63-69
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2005-10121-8

Regular Article

Influence of pressure on the electric-field-induced phase transitions in liquid crystals

Department of Physics, Banaras Hindu University, 221005, Varanasi, India

^* e-mail: srisingh@bhu.ac.in

Received: 12 May 2005
Accepted: 27 March 2006
Published online: 8 May 2006

Abstract

Within the framework of Landau-de-Gennes formulation, we analyse the effect of pressure on electric-field-induced phase transitions in a liquid crystal which shows spontaneously an isotropic-smectic A transition. Inferring from the experimental pressure dependences on the layer spacing in smectic A phase, as well as the nematic-smectic A metastable temperature T ^* _AN, we incorporated the pressure dependence in the free energy through (the surface energy term) and the coupling between the quadrupolar nematic ordering Q_ij and the smectic order parameter ψ. From the S-T phase diagram, we found that the stability of field-induced nematic phase increases with pressure, whereas the discontinuity of the transition decreases. Also, the region where paranematic phase transits directly to smectic A phase increases with pressure.