首页   按字顺浏览 期刊浏览 卷期浏览 Inversion walls in homeotropic nematic and cholesteric layers
Inversion walls in homeotropic nematic and cholesteric layers

 

作者: J.M. GILLI,   S. THIBERGE,   A. VIERHEILIG,   F. FRIED,  

 

期刊: Liquid Crystals  (Taylor Available online 1997)
卷期: Volume 23, issue 5  

页码: 619-628

 

ISSN:0267-8292

 

年代: 1997

 

DOI:10.1080/026782997207894

 

出版商: Taylor & Francis Group

 

数据来源: Taylor

 

摘要:

We describe the experimental properties of metastable domains associated with the presence of an Inversion Wall (IW) and observed with homeotropically anchored nematic and cholesteric liquid crystals sandwiched between parallel glass plates. Such a distorted situation, stabilized by the application of an electric field parallel to the plates as described in reference [1], can also be obtained transiently either when filling a sample cell by capillarity or in some studies of directional solidification at the N-I interface [2]. The application of an electric field perpendicular to the plates with Delta epsilon 0 materials allows control of the reversal region thickness in the bulk of the sample and its associated birefringence. This IW can be stabilized in the particular case of low lateral extension globules in which the line tension of the looped disclination separating the pi wall regions from the homeotropic regions counterbalances the unfavourable bulk free energy. Particular attention is devoted to the defects of these walls, whose appearance using polarizing microscopy is similar to the umbilics of the Freedericksz transition. The structure of these 'four brush' defects is nevertheless here singular, corresponding to point defects of a 3D uniaxial nematic medium. In the case of a chiral nematic, these IW undergo a particular undulation instability which is also observed in 2D simulations.

 

点击下载:  PDF (2053KB)



返 回