Smectic phases

Smectic phase of the fused hard sphere model.

The work smectic comes from the Greek for soap (Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \sigma \mu \acute{\eta} \gamma \mu \alpha} ). All of the smectic phases are layered, belonging to the $G_{1}^{3}$ symmetry group.

Smectic A phase

In the smectic-A phase each layer is a 2-dimensional liquid, having the symmetry Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle D_\infty} in the Schoenflies notation.

Smectic C phase

The smectic-C phase has the monoclinic symmetry Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle C_{\rm 2h}} .

References

1. Pierre-Gilles De Gennes and J. Prost "Physics of Liquid Crystals" (1995)
2. Jan P. F. Lagerwall and Frank Giesselmann "Current Topics in Smectic Liquid Crystal Research", ChemPhysChem 7 pp. 20-45 (2006)