Dynamic surface force measurements are used to study the response of a smectic-$A$ liquid crystal under layer-normal stress. The smectic $A$ is confined in a spherical wedge between crossed cylindrical surfaces having a minimum gap spacing of 0.5–4 μm. The force transmitted between the surfaces by the liquid crystal is measured vs surface spacing using a capacitance micrometer-based surface force apparatus. Above a threshold stress plastic flow results, consisting of individual layers being excluded or included. Each layer flow event has an intriguing dynamical structure, beginning with an enhanced drift rate, which can last for many minutes, accelerating to a rapid separation change of ∼1 or 2 s duration wherein the bulk of the relaxation occurs, and tapering off to a background drift rate over a period of a 100 s or more. The single-layer nature of the observed jumps in liquid crystal thickness indicates that they are topological in origin, i.e., slippage events in the phase of the smectic-$A$ order parameter that must necessarily involve edge or screw dislocations. A model based on the Glaberson-Clem-Oswald-Kléman helical instability in screw dislocations is the only one found to explain the data, the layering events arising from a cascade of these helical instabilities sweeping radially outward through the smectic-$A$ sample. The slow precursor acceleration is due to the nucleation of a few helices in the thin central portion of the sample. As time goes on, the force relieved is transferred to the rest of the sample, pushing larger and larger amounts of the area into the unstable regime, and a type of chain reaction occurs whereby the bulk of a layer is removed. In the end only the material at the edge of the droplet, where the thickness is largest, is left to slowly continue to nucleate, producing a long-term tail.

• Received 30 December 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.56.3028