Rigid probe solutes in a smectic-A liquid crystal: An unconventional route to the latter's positional order parameters

Biphenylene and pyrene were dissolved in the nematic and smectic-A phases of the liquid crystal 4,4’-di-n-heptyl-azoxybenzene and the orientational order parameters of both solutes and solvent measured via proton and deuteron nuclear-magnetic-resonance spectroscopy. This new data set was then merged with the one previously obtained, formed by 4,4’-di-chloro-benzene and naphthalene as solutes in the same solvent, and the resulting overall data set analyzed with a statistical thermodynamic density-functional theory to provide positional-orientational distribution functions of the various solutes along with the smectic solvent’s positional order parametersM.E.D.P. is grateful to the European Commission, the European Social Fund, and the Regione Calabria for cofunding her Ph.D. scholarship. M.E.D.P., G.C., and G.D.L. thank the University of Calabria and MIUR PRIN 2009 for financial support. G.C. acknowledges the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Research via a Raóon y Cajal research fellowshi