Orientational susceptibility in porous glass near a bulk nematic-isotropic phase transition

Abstract

Results from magnetically induced birefringence measurements on pentylcyanobiphenyl in Vycorlike porous glass are reported. We find that the Cotton-Mouton coefficient exhibits sigmoidal behavior with temperature, consistent with changes in the direction and possibly the magnitude of a nonzero tensor order parameter, even above the bulk nematic-isotropic phase transition temperature.