ANOMALOUS STIFFNESS AND TILT ANGLE IN NEMATICS FROM NONUNIFORM ATTACHMENT ANGLE

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
If the splay elastic constant k11 and the band elastic constant k33 in a nematic liquid crystal are unlike, and if the directors immediately adjacent to the surface are rigidly attached in nonuniform directions then the apparent bend and splay constants very near the surface will be altered by an averaging effect. If liquid crystals such as MBBA, having k11 < k33, are rigidly attached to the surface in irregular alignment that is parallel to the surface on average and coplanar they will behave under stress as if there were a thin inflexible layer above the surface. If their overall alignment is homeotropic, they will bend as if the surface attachment were somewhat weak and elastic, or as if there were a little more than the actual thickness of liquid crystal. If k11 > k33, the sign of the thickness anomaly is reversed. If the average angle of surface attachment is not homeotropic or parallel, then in the absence of an applied field the tilt angle beyond the distorted surface region also depends on k11/k33. For variations that are not coplanar results also depend on the twist constant, k22, but the trends are the same. Computer generated illustrations are presented

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: