Surface anchoring and growth pattern of the field-driven first-order transition in a smectic-A liquid crystal.

Surface Anchoring and Growth-Pattern of the Field-Driven 1St-Order Transition in a Smectic-A Liquid-Crystal

Continuous nematic anchoring transition due to surface-induced smectic order.

A continuous transition from tilted to homeotropic alignment at an interface is observed at a temperature T(a) for a nematic liquid crystal on cooling toward the nematic-smectic-A phase transition temperature. T(a) is found to depend on the treatment of the substrate. The behavior is examined theoretically in terms of a pair of competing easy axes (homeotropic and planar) and the tilt elasticit...

سمت‌گیری مولکول‌های بلور مایع نماتیک در وضعیت دو بعدی و اثر چنگ زدگی‌های متناهی و نامتناهی

In this paper, the director distribution is calculated for a nematic liquid crystal, in the cell with different surface anchoring conditions and external fields. The effects of finite and infinite surface anchoring on molecular orientations for one dimensional geometry are discussed. In these situations, the planar alignment is considered. Then, in a two dimensional geometry the planar and homo...

Defects in Liquid Crystals: Surface and Interfacial Anchoring Effects

This review discusses static properties of topological defects, such as line defectsdisclinations and dislocations, point defects hedgehogs (monopoles) and boojums; focal conic domains and tilt grain boundaries in basic types of liquid crystals: uniaxial and biaxial nematics, cholesterics and smectics. We present the most popular experimental techniques to study defects in soft matter, namely, ...

Surface alignment, anchoring transitions, optical properties, and topological defects in the nematic phase of thermotropic bent-core liquid crystal A131.

We study optical, structural, and surface anchoring properties of thermotropic nematic bent-core material A131. The focus is on the features associated with orientational order as the material has been reported to exhibit not only the usual uniaxial nematic but also the biaxial nematic phase. We demonstrate that A131 experiences a surface anchoring transition from a perpendicular to tilted alig...