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In nematic liquid crystals consisting of molecules which deviate from cylindrical symmetry the molecular order cannot be completely characterized by the order parameter s alone, but the order parameter D is required additionally. It is shwon here, that the diamagnetic susceptibility, the polarizability, and hence the refractive index depend on S as well as on D, and that the usually applied evaluation gives a combination of these.
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E. H. Korte (1983) studied this question.
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