Nanometer Confinement-Driven Promotion and Stabilization of a Hexatic Phase Intervening between Ordered Rotator Phases.

Bulk phase binary mixture of two rotator phase forming alkanes, n-tricosane (CH) and n-octacosane (CH), has been previously studied. CH exists in the R and R phases, whereas CH exists in the R and R phases. Over a certain range of composition, this binary mixture was found to exist in R, R and an intervening mesophase was reported to be the hexatic phase, wherein the long-range two-dimensional in-plane hexagonal lattice order of the R is lost and what remains is molecules present in hexagonal geometry without long-range positional correlation between individual hexagons.