2007/04/05 by Fangfu Ye, Ranjan Mukhopadhyay, Olaf Stenull +1 · 2 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Materials and Mechanics #Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.98.147801
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 147801 (2007) · 4 pages, 3 figures
openalex publication_date 2007/04/05 · arxiv created 2007/05/11 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Nematic elastomers with a locked-in anisotropy direction exhibit semisoft elastic response characterized by a plateau in the stress-strain curve in which stress does not change with strain. We calculate the global phase diagram for a minimal model, which is equivalent to one describing a nematic in crossed electric and magnetic fields, and show that semisoft behavior is associated with a broken symmetry biaxial phase and that it persists well into the supercritical regime. We also consider generalizations beyond the minimal model and find similar results.