Twofold orientations and hysteresis properties of nematic liquid crystals in strong magnetic fields

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Abstract
The effects of a magnetic field on director orientation in nematic liquid crystals between parallel electrodes with the director and the applied field in a plane perpendicular to the electrodes are studied theoretically; electric capacitance is computed to show changes in orientation. For a fixed field direction, capacitance is twofold for stronger magnetic fields and onefold for weaker fields. The former case corresponds to two types of orientations and the latter to a single type; the boundary is the boundary between the stable and unstable domains of one of the two types of orientation. In the twofold region, the actual selection of one orientation depends on the history of the applied magnetic field: it may happen that the orientation comes to the domain boundary and jumps to the other type. Such transitions have been experimentally observed.

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