Frustration of crystallisation by a liquid-crystal phase.
Sci Rep
; 7: 42439, 2017 02 17.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28209972
ABSTRACT
Frustration of crystallisation by locally favoured structures is critically important in linking the phenomena of supercooling, glass formation, and liquid-liquid transitions. Here we show that the putative liquid-liquid transition in n-butanol is in fact caused by geometric frustration associated with an isotropic to rippled lamellar liquid-crystal transition. Liquid-crystal phases are generally regarded as being "in between" the liquid and the crystalline state. In contrast, the liquid-crystal phase in supercooled n-butanol is found to inhibit transformation to the crystal. The observed frustrated phase is a template for similar ordering in other liquids and likely to play an important role in supercooling and liquid-liquid transitions in many other molecular liquids.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Language:
En
Journal:
Sci Rep
Year:
2017
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United kingdom