Abstract
We report x-ray scattering studies of the smectic liquid crystal octylcyano-biphenol (8CB)confined by strained colloidal silica gels. The gels, comprised of aerosil particles, possess ananisotropic structure that stabilizes long-range nematic order in the liquid crystalwhile introducing random field effects that disrupt the smectic transition. Theshort-range smectic correlations that form within this environment are inconsistentwith the presence of a topologically ordered state predicted for 3D random fieldXY systems and are quantitatively like the correlations of smectics confined by isotropic gels.Detailed analysis reveals that the quenched disorder suppresses the anisotropicscaling of the smectic correlation lengths observed in the pure liquid crystal. Theseresults and additional measurements of the smectic-A to smectic-C transition in4-n-pentylphenylthiol--n-octyloxybenzoate () indicate that the observed smectic behaviour is dictated by random fields couplingdirectly to the smectic order while fields coupling to the nematic director play asubordinate role.
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