We have measured the electric current induced by mechanical distortion of a calamitic liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) swollen with a low molecular weight bent-core nematic (BCN) liquid crystal, and have determined, for the first time, the bend flexoelectric coefficient e 3 of such a BCN-LCE composite. In one method, we utilise air-pressure to induce a mechanical bend deformation and flexoelectri...

Liquid crystal flexoelectric actuation uses an imposed electric field to create membrane bending, and it is used by the outer hair cells (OHCs) located in the inner ear, whose role is to amplify sound through generation of mechanical power. Oscillations in the OHC membranes create periodic viscoelastic flows in the contacting fluid media. A key objective of this work on flexoelectric actuation ...

Flexoelectric effects in nematic liquid crystals are well known to occur through combinations of either the sum or the difference of the splay and bend polarizations. In this work we examine the role of both mechanisms in the switching of zenithally bistable nematic devices, and conclude that both can cause bistable switching. Interestingly, we find that the most important flexoelectric coeffic...

There are ample experimental evidences indicating that the ferroelastic domain walls of incipient ferroelectrics, such as SrTiO3 and CaTiO3, are polar. The emergence of such interfacial polar order at a domain wall is exciting and believed to arise from the coupling between a primary order parameter, such as a strain or an antiferrodistortive (AFD) order parameter, and polarization. There have ...