Paranematic order of nano-confined nCFPB liquid crystals

Spatial confinement on the micro- and nanoscale can markedly affect the physics of liquid crystals (LCs). There is no ‘‘true’’ isotropic-nematic (I-N) transition for LCs confined in geometries spatially restricted in at least one direction to a few nanometres. The anchoring at the confining walls, quantified by a surface field, imposes a partial orientational, that is, a partially nematic ordering of the confined LCs, even at temperatures T far above the bulk I-N transition temperature. The strong first-order I-N transition is replaced by a weak continuous paranematic-nematic (P-N) transition, depending on the strength of the surface orientational field in nanoscopic straight channels in anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membranes. We propose studies of the self-organization of nCFPB LC molecules in confinement via a series of SANS measurements at thermodynamically characteristic temperatures to provide important structural information for both soft matter theory and practical applications of certain LCs in displays and sensors.