From Permeation to Pore Nucleation in Smectic Stacks

The last stage of the spreading of a stratified droplet in the odd wetting case is the evolution from a trilayer to a monolayer, that is, vanishing of the last bilayer in the stack. We studied it in the case of 8CB smectic liquid crystal on a hydrophilic surface. Receding of the last bilayer is accompanied by formation of pores in it, which appear in the outer part of it. From analysis of real-time experimental observations of this phenomenon, we demonstrate that the dislocation loops which border these pores are not located at the same height in the trilayer stack as the dislocation lines that border the bilayer. Also, careful analysis of our results using a recently developed theoretical approach of smectic liquid nanodrop spreading strongly suggests that pore nucleation is triggered by differences in chemical potential between adjacent layers, which contrasts with the classical scheme where it is attributed to lateral tension along the layers.