Abstract
High-resolution heat-capacity, optical reflectivity, and electron-diffraction measurements have been conducted on thin free-standing films of a liquid-crystal compound exhibiting the smectic-$A$---hexatic-$B$---crystal-$B$ transitions. Despite the absence of herringbone order, the liquid-hexatic transition in extremely thin films has been found to show a pronounced pretransitional heat-capacity anomaly, in disagreement with the predictions of two-dimensional melting theory. In addition, both the surface-enhanced layer-by-layer transition near the smectic-$A$---hexatic-$B$ and an unexpected layer thinning transition above the bulk isotropic-smectic-$A$ transition temperature have been observed.
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