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Articles you may be interested inGeneration of frustrated liquid crystal phases by mixing an achiral nematic-smectic-C mesogen with an antiferroelectric chiral smectic liquid crystalThe effects of vacuum-deposited SiO x alignment layers on the thermal generation offocal conic centers in a smectic A liquid crystal were investigated using controlled thermal cycles. Surface defects were found to promote focal conic formation. Focal conic density increases with cooling rate for a given alignment layer, and with the deposition angle of the alignment layer for a fixed cooling rate. An attempt was made to fit these findings to heterogeneous nucleation theory in an effort to better understand the effects of selected thermodynamic properties on the focal conic formation process PACS numbers: 64.70.Ew, 65.90. + i, 82.60.Nh

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