High-pressure investigation of the reentrant nematic bilayer smectic-<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>A</mml:mi></mml:math>transition

Abstract

We find that certain cyano Schiff bases and cyanobiphenyls with alkyl or alkoxy end groups exhibiting a bilayer smectic-$A$ phase, also exhibit a reentrant nematic phase at high pressure. A tentative model of the bilayer smectic-$A$ phase and the mechanism whereby the reentrant transition may occur is presented.