Nematics with quenched disorder : violation of self-averaging

Abstract

We consider the isotropic-to-nematic transition in liquid crystals confined to aerogel hosts, and assume that the aerogel acts as a random field. We generally find that self-averaging is violated. For a bulk transition that is weakly first-order, the violation of self-averaging is so severe, even the correlation length becomes non-self-averaging: no phase transition remains in this case. For a bulk transition that is more strongly first-order, the violation of self-averaging is milder, and a phase transition is observed.

To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett

References in corpus (3)

• Nematic-Isotropic Transition with Quenched Disorder
• The isotropic-to-nematic transition in confined liquid crystals : an essentially non-universal phenomenon
• Scale Invariance and Self-averaging in disordered systems

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Breakdown of Ergodicity and Self-Averaging in Polar Flocks with Quenched Disorder
• Thermotropic Nematic and Smectic Order in Silica Glass Nanochannels
• Non-self-averaging topological Anderson insulator