Abstract
We present an ellipsometry study of the interface between thermotropic liquid crystals and liquid phases consisting of various binary mixtures of water and glycerol. The liquid-crystal samples contain a small constant amount of a surfactant which induces a homeotropic anchoring at the interface. We determine the smectic or nematic order at the interface in the temperature range above the liquid-crystal-isotropic transition while the water to glycerol ratio is varied, corresponding to a systematic modification of the polarity of the liquid phase. The surface-induced order becomes less pronounced with increasing glycerol concentration in the liquid phase. The observed behavior is compared with previous studies in which the surfactant concentration in the liquid-crystal bulk phase was varied. The results indicate that in both cases the magnitude of the surfactant coverage at the interface is the key quantity which determines the liquid-crystal surface order at the interface.
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