Characterization of surface anchoring energy of nematic liquid crystals via electrohydrodynamic instability

Ryu, Dae Geon; Huh, Jong–Hoon; Kim, Young-Ki; Gwag, Jin Seog

doi:10.1103/physreve.101.062703

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Most of the existing techniques to measure the azimuthal surface anchoring energy are applicable to surfaces with unidirectional alignment [44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. In this work, we demonstrate a method to measure the azimuthal anchoring coefficient of a nematic with a patterned director field.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Azimuthal Anchoring Strength in Photopatterned Alignment of a Nematic

et al. 2021

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Spatially-varying director fields have become an important part of research and development in liquid crystals. Characterization of the anchoring strength associated with a spatially-varying director is difficult, since the methods developed for a uniform alignment are seldom applicable. Here we characterize the strength of azimuthal surface anchoring produced by the photoalignment technique based on plasmonic metamsaks. The measurements used photopatterned arrays of topological point defects of strength +1 and −1 in thin layers of a nematic liquid crystal. The integer-strength defects split into pairs of half-integer defects with lower elastic energy. The separation distance between the split pair is limited by the azimuthal surface anchoring, which allows one to determine the strength of the latter. The strength of the azimuthal anchoring is proportional to the UV exposure time during the photoalignment of the azobenzene layer.

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