title: Extraordinary magnetic field effect in bent-core liquid crystals.
abstract: A bent-core mesogen that forms a cybotactic nematic phase exhibits a giant magnetic field-induced shift of its nematic-isotropic and smectic-C-nematic transition temperatures: ΔT(H) = 4 K for H = 10 kOe. In contrast with molecular nematics, in cybotactic nematics the field couples with the anisotropic susceptibility of clusters containing several hundred partially ordered molecules. X-ray diffraction data corroborate a quantitative estimate of inferred cluster size (∼300 molecules). The results represent an unequivocal demonstration of the cluster picture of the nematic phase of this class of nonlinear liquid crystals.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze e Ingegneria della Materia, dell'Ambiente ed Urbanistica and CNISM, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy. o.francescangeli@univpm.it
authors.forename: Oriano
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Francescangeli
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Vita
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fauth
authors.forename: Edward T
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Samulski