Smectic elastomer membranes

Details Smectic elastomer membranes Smectic elastomer membranes

2007-04-24

arxiv.org/abs/0704.3227v1

Phys. Rev. E 75, 051702 (2007)

Physics

Condensed Matter

Soft Condensed Matter

10 pages, 2 figures

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevE.75.051702

We present a model for smectic elastomer membranes which includes elastic and liquid crystalline degrees of freedom. Based on our model, we determined the qualitative phase diagram of a smectic elastomer membrane using mean-field theory. This phase diagram is found to comprise five phases, viz. smectic-A--flat, smectic-A--crumpled, smectic-C--flat, smectic-C--crumpled and smectic-C--tubule, where in the latter phase, the membrane is flat in the direction of mesogenic tilt and crumpled in the perpendicular direction. The transitions between adjacent phases are second order phase transitions. We study in some detail the elasticity of the smectic-C--flat and the smectic-C--tubule phases which are associated with a spontaneous breaking of in-plane rotational symmetry. As a consequence of the Goldstone theorem, these phases exhibit soft elasticity characterized by the vanishing of in-plane shear moduli.

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