Surface-induced textures in lyotropic liquid crystalline mesophases

In the present work the investigation of the effect of YBa2Cu3O7-x complex compounds thin films on the mesomorphic, morphologic and orientational prop erties of lyotropic nematics have been carried out. The thin films of YBa2C u3O7-x lead to an increase in number of morphologies of investigated nemati cs and promote the obtaining of tilted oriented and homeotropic textures of these nematics. The coating of YBa2Cu3O7-x thin films by inverted cylindrical DC magnetron sputtering system has been shown in this work to be a useful method for obt aining oriented textures of lyotropic nematics. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S .A. All rights reserved.