title: Effects of magnetic nanoparticles with different surface coating on the phase transitions of octylcyanobiphenyl liquid crystal.
abstract: The impact of magnetic nanoparticles with different surface coating upon the isotropic-to-nematic and nematic-to-smectic- A phase transitions of the liquid crystal octylcyanobiphenyl is explored by means of high-resolution adiabatic scanning calorimetry. A shrinkage of the nematic range is observed, which is strongly dependent on the surface coating of the nanoparticles. The isotropic-to-nematic transition remains weakly first order while the nematic-to-smectic- A is continuous with the effective critical exponent alpha values (0.35 and 0.39, depending on the coating) between the pure octylcyanobiphenyl value of 0.31+/-0.03 and the theoretical tricritical value of 0.5.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorium voor Akoestiek en Thermische Fysica, Departement Natuurkunde en Sterrenkunde, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cordoyiannis
authors.forename: Lynn K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Kurihara
authors.forename: Luz J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Martinez-Miranda
authors.forename: Christ
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Glorieux
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Thoen