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A setup is described to determine the flow alignment angle θ0 in nematic liquid crystals. Results for compounds with and without a strongly polar terminal cyano group indicate that the antiparallel dipole correlation associated with cyano groups has no influence on θ0. The influence of the occurence of a smectic-A phase on θ0 is investigated on three homologous series. The results show that θ0 is a very sensitive probe for smectic-like short-range order. With increasing chain lengths a decrease of θ0 is found, until finally no flow alignment exists anymore. Interestingly, a similar behavior is found in a homologous series without smectic phases.
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Beens et al. (1985) studied this question.
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