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REVIEWS OF TOPICAL PROBLEMS

New types of ordering in liquid crystals

E. I. Kats

Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, USSR Academy of Sciences, Chernogolovka, Moscow region

Abstract: Possible types of liquid-crystalline order in systems consisting of rod-shaped or diskotic, as well as structurally more complicated, molecules are examined. Special attention is devoted to new liquid-crystalline phases. Their basic physical properties are analyzed. The phase diagrams and the peculiarities of the critical behavior are investigated in each case. Analogies to some wellknown problems in the physics of the condensed state are discussed.

UDC: 532.783

PACS: 61.30.Gd, 64.70.Md

DOI: 10.3367/UFNr.0142.198401d.0099

 English version: Physics–Uspekhi, 1984, 27:1, 42–59