ORIENTATIONAL ORDERING, CONFORMATION, AND POLARIZABILITY OF MOLECULESIN THE REENTRANT PHASE OF DISCOID NEMATICS

This paper presents data on orientational ordering in a reentrant disc oid nematic and on changes in the polarizability of discogenic molecul es in a homologous series. The phase transition of a nematic to the di scotic column phase is accompanied by a jump of the orientational orde ring parameter and is characterized by close relationship between the orientational and translational ordering of molecules. The lengthening of the flexible peripheral molecular chains in the reentrant nematic phase considerably changes their conformational state, decreasing the anisotropy of their polarizability.