Buckling instability of the layers in a smectic-A liquid crystal

Non-equilibrium dynamics of lipid bilayers

“…A characteristic length scale of Γ = 138 ± 63nm roughly coincides with predictions for an undulation instability [122,123,124]. The evolution of collective modes is reected by apparent changes of the mechanical parameters K and B.…”

“…Following this straight forward approach would imply a transient decrease of characteristic bending energy K ∝ Λ and an increase of the bilayer compressibility B ∝ This observation can be interpreted in terms of a buckling instability as predicted and observed [122,123,124] for tensile forces perpendicular to the bilayer normal, acting on a mechanically quenched system. In the present case in plane uctuation repulsion due to increased positional disorder on the nanosecond time scale leads to internal stress as a hypothetical homogeneous variation of the lm thickness L Figure 5.16: Temporal evolution of the integrated intensity II(n, t) (diamond, black), lateral correlation length ξr(t) (asterix, blue) , lineshape parameter γ(t) (circle, red) and smectic length scale Λ(t) (cross, green) for the rst (n = 1) (top) and second (n = 2) (bottom) order diuse reection for Ep = 500µJ.…”

Undulation instability under shear in smectic A liquid crystals

“…-We deal with a smectic A liquid crystal subjected to a dilative strain perpendicular to the layers. Above a certain threshold value of the dilation, the layers develop a static undulation with some wave vector q of arbitrary orientation within a plane parallel to the layers [1,2,3,4].…”

Effects of confinement on self-assembling systems

“…Hence, some other kinds of deformations can be expected. The short-period lamellar phases resemble smectic liquid crystals, which show Helfrich [18][19][20][21] undulation instability under external stress. We should thus take into account a possibility of a similar behavior in oil-water-surfactant mixtures.…”