# Effect of magnetic nanoparticles on the nematic-smectic-A phase transition

Source: [Effect of magnetic nanoparticles on the nematic-smectic-A phase transition](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/68fa35b81e209131ce8a3e5d>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2025-10-24T21:24:36.654Z

Authors: Prabir K Mukherjee, Amit K Chattopadhyay

Published: 2017-05-24T11:28:15.000Z

## Abstract

Recent experiments on mixed liquid crystals have highlighted the hugely significant role of ferromagnetic nanoparticle impurities in defining the nematic-smectic-A phase transition point. Structured around a Flory-Huggins free energy of isotropic mixing and Landau-de Gennes free energy, this article presents a phenomenological mean-field model that quantifies the role of such impurities in analyzing thermodynamic phases, in a mixture of thermotropic smectic liquid crystal and ferromagnetic nanoparticles. First we discuss the impact of ferromagnetic nanoparticles on the isotropic-ferronematic and ferronematic-ferrosmectic phase transitions and their transition temperatures. This is followed by analysis of various topologies in the phase diagrams. Our model results indicate that there exists a critical concentration of nanoparticle impurities for which the second order N-SmA transition becomes first order at a tricritical point. Calculations based on this model show remarkable agreement with experiment.

## Recorded benchmark results

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## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.08702>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.08702.pdf>)