X-Ray Observation of a Stacked Hexatic Liquid-Crystal<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>B</mml:mi></mml:math>Phase

Abstract

X-ray studies have been performed on a new liquid-crystal material which exhibits a noncrystalline $B$ phase. Using free-standing liquid-crystal film techniques, we find that this $B$ phase has short-range in-plane positional correlations but long-range, three-dimensional, sixfold bond-orientational order. We interpret our results in terms of a system of interacting two-dimensional hexatic layers.