| AVS 54th International Symposium | |
| Surface Science | Thursday Sessions |
| Session SS-ThP |
| Session: | Surface Science Poster Session |
| Presenter: | K. Bufkin, Western Washington University |
| Authors: | K. Bufkin, Western Washington University R. Adams, Western Washington University B.L. Johnson, Western Washington University D.L. Patrick, Western Washington University |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
The behavior of liquid crystals (LC) at interfaces has been an important area of research for many years because of its relevance to LC device applications such as LCDs. In this research ordered monolayer films of the LC 4’-octyl-4-biphenyl-carbonitrile (8CB) on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite were investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) in order to study their disordering kinetics and to develop a better understanding of a phenomenon known as the surface memory effect. The surface memory effect occurs when a LC film retains a degree of remnant orientational order even after being heated above its isotropic transition temperature. Using STM we studied molecular-scale ordering in 8CB films heated to varying temperatures and for varying lengths of time. The results are compared to large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of a 2-dimensional Ising Model, which suggests for the first time that nearest-neighbor interactions in the isotropic phase play an important role in producing surface memory effects.