Critical Splay-Bend Deformation of Nematic Films
Open Access
- 1 April 1976
- journal article
- Published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH in Zeitschrift für Naturforschung A
- Vol. 31 (3-4) , 302-305
- https://doi.org/10.1515/zna-1976-3-415
Abstract
In thin nematic films the director field n may only depend on z, the normal to the film plane. There are two stable configurations with less than all three types of deformation present, the pure twist and the pure splay-bend. For the pure twist under the additional influence of an external field normal to the twist plane the range of stability is well known already. For the pure splay-bend the critical equation is derived here under the additional influence of an external field normal to the splay-bend plane. It comes out as an eigenvalue problem which can be solved using Ritz’ method. Numerical solutions are presented for K1 = K3 .Keywords
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