Abstract
This Letter presents x-ray studies of freely suspended smectic liquid-crystal films from 2 to g100 layers thick. Smectic-$B$ thick films of butyloxybenzylidene octylaniline (40.8) have three-dimensional long-range order while thin films are two-dimensional crystals. Large diffuse scattering is observed from soft shear waves, propagating perpendicular to the layers, and three new low-temperature phases with different interlayer order in thick films are found.
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