title: Photoinduced nematic-isotropic phase transition: a case for the random-field Ising model.
abstract: Experiments have been carried out on a photoactive guest-nonphotoactive host system exhibiting a photoinduced nematic-isotropic phase transition. It is shown that the phenomenon of photoinduced shift in the transition temperature is similar to the induction of cooperative chiral order in "sergeant-soldier" copolymer systems. An expression resembling the one given by the random-field model proposed for the latter system is seen to quantitatively describe the shift in the transition temperature as a function of the magnitude of the radiation.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Liquid Crystal Research, Jalahalli, Bangalore 560 013, India.
authors.forename: K L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Sandhya
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Krishna Prasad
authors.forename: G G
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Nair