The birefringence has been measured in detail near the smectic-A to smectic-B phase transition in N-(p-butoxybenzylidene)-p-n-octylaniline. The birefringence undergoes a sharp discontinuity of 2.5×{}10^-3 within 2 mK at the transition. A pretransitional behavior in both the birefringence and the response time is found in a temperature interval of 0.3 K below the transition. The change in birefringence in the smectic-B phase follows a parabolic temperature dependence.
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Lim et al. (1979) studied this question.
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