Sensitive methods for estimating the anchoring strength of nematic liquid crystals on Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers of fatty acids

The anchoring of the nematic liquid crystal N-(p-methoxybenzylidene)-p-butylaniline (MBBA) on Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers of fatty acids (COOHC$_{n}$H$_{2n+1}$) was studied as a function of the length of the fatty acid alkyl chains, $n$ ($n = 15, 17, 19, 21$). The monolayers were deposited onto ITO-coated glass plates which were used to assemble sandwich cells of various thickness that were filled with MBBA in the nematic phase. The mechanism of relaxation from the flow-induced quasi-planar to the surface-induced homeotropic alignment was studied for the four decreases linearly with increasing the length of the alkyl chains $n$ which suggests that the Langmuir-Blodgett film plays a role in the phenomenon. This fact was confirmed by a sensitive estimation of the anchoring strength of MBBA on the fatty acid monolayers after anchoring breaking which takes place at the transition between two electric-field--induced turbulent states, denoted as DSM1 and DSM2. It was found that the threshold electric field for the anchoring breaking, which can be considered as a measure of the anchoring strength, also decreases linearly as $n$ increases. Both methods thus possess a high sensitivity in resolving small differences in anchoring strength. In cells coated with mixed Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers of two fatty acids ($n=15$ and $n=17$) a maximum of the relaxation speed was observed when the two acids were present in equal amount. This observation homeotropic cells by changing the ratio between the components of the surfactant film.Comment: LaTeX article, 20 pages, 15 figures, 17 EPS files. 1 figure added, references moved. Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Nonlinear optical properties of a channel waveguide produced with crosslinkable ferroelectric liquid crystals

A binary mixture of ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) was used for the design of a channel waveguide. The FLCs possess two important functionalities: a chromophore with a high hyperpolarizability $\beta$ and photoreactive groups. The smectic liquid crystal is aligned in layers parallel to the glass plates in a sandwich geometry. This alignment offers several advantages, such as that moderate electric fields are sufficient to achieve a high degree of polar order. The arrangement was then permanently fixed by photopolymerization which yielded a polar network possessing a high thermal and mechanical stability which did not show any sign of degradation within the monitored period of several months. The linear and nonlinear optical properties have been measured and all four independent components of the nonlinear susceptibility tensor $\bar d$ have been determined. The off-resonant $d$-coefficients are remarkably high and comparable to those of the best known inorganic materials. The alignment led to an inherent channel waveguide for p-polarized light without additional preparation steps. The photopolymerization did not induce scattering sites in the waveguide and the normalized losses were less than 2 dB/cm. The material offers a great potential for the design of nonlinear optical devices such as frequency doublers of low power laser diodes.Comment: LaTeX2e article, 15 pages, 10 figures, 11 EPS files, submitted to Physical Review

Alignment transition in a nematic liquid crystal due to field-induced breaking of anchoring

We report on the alignment transition of a nematic liquid crystal from initially homeotropic to quasi-planar due to field-induced anchoring breaking. The initial homeotropic alignment is achieved by Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers. In this geometry the anchoring strength can be evaluated by the Frederiks transition technique. Applying an electric field above a certain threshold provokes turbulent states denoted DSM1 and DSM2. While DSM1 does not affect the anchoring, DSM2 breaks the coupling between the surface and the liquid crystal: switching off the field from a DSM2 state does not immediately restore the homeotropic alignment. Instead, we obtain a quasi-planar metastable alignment. The cell thickness dependence for the transition is related to theComment: 7 pages, LaTeX2e article, 4 figures, 7 EPS files, added references, accepted for publication in Europhysics Letter

Charge-Vortex Duality in Double-Layered Josephson Junction Arrays

A system of two parallel Josephson junction arrays coupled by interlayer capacitances is considered in the situation where one layer is in the vortex-dominated and the other in the charge-dominated regime. This system shows a symmetry (duality) of the relevant degrees of freedom, i.e. the vortices in one layer and the charges in the other. In contrast to single-layer arrays both contribute to the kinetic energy. The charges feel the magnetic field created by vortices, and, vice versa, the vortices feel a gauge field created by charges. For long-range interaction of the charges the system exhibits two Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transitions, one for vortices and another one for charges. The interlayer capacitance suppresses both transition temperatures. The charge-unbinding transition is suppressed already for relatively weak coupling, while the vortex-unbinding transition is more robust. The shift of the transition temperature for vortices is calculated in the quasi-classical approximation for arbitrary relations between the capacitances (both weak and strong coupling).Comment: 12 pages, Revtex 3.

Decoherence by engineered quantum baths

We introduce, and determine decoherence for, a wide class of non-trivial quantum spin baths which embrace Ising, XY and Heisenberg universality classes coupled to a two-level system. For the XY and Ising universality classes we provide an exact expression for the decay of the loss of coherence beyond the case of a central spin coupled uniformly to all the spins of the baths which has been discussed so far in the literature. In the case of the Heisenberg spin bath we study the decoherence by means of the time-dependent density matrix renormalization group. We show how these baths can be engineered, by using atoms in optical lattices.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Resistance of Josephson Junction Arrays at Low Temperatures

We study motion of vortices in arrays of Josephson junctions at zero temperature where it is controlled by quantum tunneling from one plaquette to another. The tunneling process is characterized by a finite time and can be slow compared to the superconducting gap (so that $\tau \Delta >> 1$). The dissipation which accompanies this process arises from rare processes when a vortex excites a quasiparticle above the gap while tunneling through a single junction. We find that the dissipation is significant even in the case $\tau \Delta >> 1$, in particular it is not exponentially small in this parameter. We use the calculated energy dissipation for the single vortex jump to estimate the physical resistance of the whole array.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX references added, to appear in PR

Increasing of entanglement entropy from pure to random quantum critical chains

It is known that the entropy of a block of spins of size $L$ embedded in an infinite pure critical spin chain diverges as the logarithm of $L$ with a prefactor fixed by the central charge of the corresponding conformal field theory. For a class of strongly random spin chains, it has been shown that the correspondent block entropy still remains universal and diverges logarithmically with an "effective" central charge. By computing the entanglement entropy for a family of models which includes the $N$-states random Potts chain and the $Z_N$ clock model, we give some definitive answer to some recent conjectures about the behaviour of the effective central charge. In particular, we show that the ratio between the entanglement entropy in the pure and in the disordered system is model dependent and we provide a series of critical models where the entanglement entropy grows from the pure to the random case.Comment: 4 pages, 2 eps figures, added reference