Remarks on Critical Thickness of a Hybrid Aligned Nematic Cell with Large Elastic Anisotropy

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Abstract
We analyze the critical thickness of a hybrid aligned cell, below which the nematic liquid crystal assumes an undistorted configuration. We show that: ( a) if k 11 k 33, the critical thickness exists only in the case of different anchoring energies, between the walls; ( b) if k 11 « k 33, the critical thickness exists only if the anchoring energy for homeotropic orientation is greater than that for the planar orientation. Conversely, if k 11 » k 33, the anchoring energy for the planar orientation should be greater than that for the homeotropic orientation