Non-equilibrium cooling and heating of an MBBA liquid crystal at the first-order phase transition in a long cell

The first-order phase transition of an MBBA nematic liquid crystal with benzene impurity has been studied by the critical opalescence method at a large cell thickness. Opalescence has been observed at two critical transition points. The spatial transverse parameters of the domains are determined from the Fraunhofer diffraction. The hypothesis about the longitudinal correlation parameter of domains is equal to the cell length has been proposed.