Polar anchoring energy and order parameter at a nematic liquid crystal-wall interface

Abstract
By measuring the integrated birefringence versus thickness of homogeneous and distorted nematic liquid crystal configurations, we have obtained the anchoring energy and the change of the order parameter at the orientating layer. The measurements were made for planar and tilted orientating SiO layers and for rubbed polyimide. The tilted orientating SiO layer shows the most significant decrease of the order parameter near the interface, which can be explained by its microscopically inhomogeneous alignment.