The structure of overlapped epitropic LC

Abstract

The proposed model of the structure of the wall-adjacent epitropic liquid crystalline layer considers it as an oligomeric system of thread-like associates in a non-associated liquid. The results of ELC studies of layers of aliphatic hydrocarbon - n-hexadecane are analyzed. The study of the ELC phase in n-alkanes is important both for the modification of the quantitative physical theory of this phenomenon, and in a practical sense, as it allows to solve practical problems related to the control of boundary friction in mechanisms and parts of machines. Previously, the results of rheological and structural-optical studies of the properties of these systems were considered separately, and the results obtained in the molecular-statistical model were not correlated in detail with the results of rheological measurements for the case of overlapped near-surface layers. To interpret the results of studies (by rheological and optical methods) of such a layer in interlayers of n-hexadecane, symmetrically limited by conductive substrates, it is proposed to take into account the increase in the concentration of the ordered component ("pile") under the condition that the wall layers of epitropic liquid crystals in the interlayer overlap. It will also allow to take into account the results obtained in the molecular statistical model in the processing of rheological data.