Threshold and saturation properties of the field-induced twist cell with two parameters weak anchoring boundaries

On the basis of two-parameter formula of weak surface coupling anchoring energy of nematic liquid crystals proposed by Zhao et al recently, the general torque equilibrium equation and boundary conditions of the director have been obtained and the threshold field as well as the saturation field of the field-induced twist cell have been analysed for three kinds of configurations, i.e. homogeneous, splay and Pi cells formed by different rubbing conditions and pretilt angles. The results indicated that the polar anchoring has no effect on the threshold field. It is determined only by the twist anchoring and pretilt angle. But, the polar anchoring and twist anchoring are coupling with each other and have a great influence on the saturation field. The formulae for calculating the threshold field and saturation field are given. These results will be very useful in understanding surface physics and the design of liquid crystal cells.     

The influence of surface effects on Frederiks transition in nematic liquid crystal doped with ferroelectric nanoparticles

Motivated by our recent work,in this work,we present the numerical study of the anchoring effect on the Frederiks threshold field in a nematic liquid crystal doped with ferroelectric colloidal nanoparticles.Assuming weak anchoring conditions,we employ the relaxation method and Maxwell construction to numerically solve the Euler–Lagrangian differential equation for the total free energy together the Rapini–Papoular surface energy to take into account anchoring of nematic liquid crystal molecules at the substrates.In this study,we focus our attention on obtaining the phase diagrams of Frederiks transition for different values of anchoring strength which have been not computed in our previous work.In this way,the effect of nanoparticle radius,nanoparticle volume fraction,nanoparticle polarization,and cell thickness on the Frederiks transition for different values of anchoring conditions are summarized in the phase diagrams.The numerical results show that by increasing the nanoparticles size and nanoparticle volume fraction in the ferronematic system,the Frederiks threshold field is strongly reduced.     

Quartic coupling and its effect on wetting behaviors in nematic liquid crystals

Based on the fact that rubbed groove patterns also affect the anchoring of liquid crystals at substrates,a quartic coupling is included in constructing the surface energy for a liquid crystal cell.The phase diagram and the wetting behaviors of the liquid crystal cell,bounded by surfactant-laden interfaces in a magnetic field perpendicular to the substrate are discussed by taking the quartic coupling into account.The nematic order increases at the surface while it decreases in the bulk as a result of the introduction of quartic substrate-liquid crystal coupling,indicating that the groove anchoring makes the liquid crystal molecules align more orderly near the substrate than away from it.This causes a different wetting behavior:complete wetting.     

Threshold property of a nematic liquid crystal cell with two grating surface substrates

A grating surface can drive the liquid crystal molecules to orientate along the direction parallel or vertical to the projected plane of the grating surface. The nematic liquid crystal (NLC) cell manufactured with two pre-treated grating surface substrates may realize the vertical display, parallel display and twist display. In this paper, the threshold property of this NLC cell is investigated systematically. With the Frank elastic theory and the equivalent anchoring energy formula of grating surface substrate, the analytic expressions of the threshold voltage related to three displays are obtained, which are dependent on their geometrical parameters such as amplitude δ and pitch λ of the grating surface substrate. For a certain anchoring strength, the threshold voltage increases or decreases with the increase of the value δ/λ of the different displays.     

ON THE SATURATION BEHAVIOUR OF TWISTED NEMATIC LIQUID CRYSTAL CELLS WITH A NONZERO PRETILT ANGLE

Equations are obtained for the surface tilt angle and the twist angle of the director in a twisted nematic liquid crystal cell under a high magnetic field. Under a zero pretilt angle, the two equations reduce to those obtained by Sugimura et al. This fact has also been demonstrated numerically. With finite field strength and nonzero pretilt angle, no saturation transition exists.     

Viewing angle characteristics of a nematic liquid crystal cell with two crossed-grating surface substrates

Liquid crystal in a nematic liquid crystal cell surface with two crossed-grating surface substrates can be oriented along the normal grating direction with given geometric parameters of groove and anchoring strength. This display is equivalent to multi-domain vertical-alignment mode. It has a relatively wide viewing angle. In this letter, we investigate the viewing angle characteristics of this kind of cell. The viewing angle dependence of contrast ratio is obtained using the extended Jones matrix method, which also considers the flexoelectric effect. The viewing angle is dependent on the geometric parameter of grating surface, the flexoelectric coefficients, and the anchoring strength. Therefore, appropriate value for each factor needs to be selected to obtain a better viewing angle of this cell.     

Magneto-optical effect of TEB30A liquid crystal doped with thulium oxides

The influences of an external magnetic field on the optical properties of the TEB30A nematic liquid crystal doped with thulium oxides （Gd203, Dy203, Nd203, Y203, and Sm203） are studied. It is shown that a magnetic field applied parallelly to the sample cell surface leads to the rotational orientation of mesogenes. All samples except for the sample doped with Sm203 nanoparticles undergo structural deformations. The behavior of the TEB30A/Sm203 differs from those of the TEB30A liquid crystal doped with other four nanoparticles. The presence of Sm203 nanoparticles in the TEB30A liquid crystal does not cause the structural deformation of the liquid crystal matrix. At the same time, the anchoring type of the liquid crystal molecules on the nanoparticle surface is different. The director n is parallel to the magnetic moment/~ in the TEB30A/Sm203, and inclined to the magnetic moment/~ in the TEB30A/Nd203, and perpendicular to the magnetic moment/~ in each of TEB30A/Gd203, TEB30A/Dy203, and TEB30A/Y203. Besides, the dependence of the structural deformation on the critical magnetic field for the TEB30A is obtained.     

Experimental design to measure the anchoring energy on substrate surface by using the alternating-current bridge

The anchoring property of the substrate surface of liquid crystal cells plays an important role in display and nondisplay fields. This property directly affects the deformation of liquid crystal molecules to change the phase difference through liquid crystal cells. In this paper, a test method based on the alternating-current bridge is proposed to determine the capacitance of liquid crystal cells and thus measure the anchoring energy of the substrate surface. The anchoring energy can be obtained by comparing the capacitance–voltage curves of twisted nematic liquid crystal cells with different anchoring properties in experimental and theoretical results simulated on the basis of Frank elastic theory. Compared with the other methods to determine the anchoring energy, our proposed method requires a simple treatment of liquid crystal cells and allows easy and high-accuracy measurements, thereby expanding the test ideas on the performance parameters of liquid crystal devices.     

Determining the sum of flexoelectric coefficients in nematic liquid crystals by the capacitance method

A detailed theoretical analysis of determining the sum of flexoelectric coefficients in nematic liquid crystals using the capacitance method is given. In the strong anchoring parallel aligned nematic （PAN） and hybrid aligned nematic （HAN） cells, the dependences of the capacitance on the sum of flexoelectric coefficients and the applied voltage are obtained by numerical simulations, and the distributions of the director and the electric potential for different applied voltages and flexoelectric coefficients are also given. Based on this theoretical analysis, we propose an experimental design for measuring the capacitance of a liquid crystal cell using the improved precision LCR meter E4980A （Agilent）. Through comparing the experimental data with the simulated results, the sum of flexoeletric coefficients can be determined.     

Bubble dynamics in a strong first-order quark-hadron transition

We investigate the dynamics of a strong first-order quark-hadron transition driven by cubic interactions via homogeneous bubble nucleation in the Friedberg-Lee model.The one-loop effective thermodynamic potential of the model and the critical bubble profiles have been calculated at different temperatures and chemical potentials.By taking the temperature and the chemical potential as variables,the evolutions of the surface tension,the typical radius of the critical bubble,and the shift in the coarse-grained free energy in the presence of a nucleation bubble are obtained,and the limit on the reliability of the thin-wall approximation is also addressed accordingly.Our results are compared to those obtained for a weak first-order quark-hadron phase transition;in particular,the spinodal decomposition is relevant.     

Anchoring properties of substrate with a grating surface

The anchoring properties of substrate with a grating surface are investigated analytically. The alignment of nematic liquid crystal (NLC) in a grating surface originates from two mechanisms, thus the anchoring energy consists of two parts. One originates from the interaction potential between NLC molecules and the molecules on the substrate surface, and the other stems from the increased elastic strain energy. Based on the two mechanisms, the expression of anchoring energy per unit area of a projected plane of this grating surface is deduced and called the equivalent anchoring energy formula. Both the strength and the easy direction of equivalent anchoring energy are a function of the geometrical parameters (amplitude and pitch) of a grating surface. By using this formula, the grating surface can be replaced by its projected plane and its anchoring properties can be described by the equivalent anchoring energy formula.     

Two-dimensional models of threshold voltage and subthreshold current for symmetrical double-material double-gate strained Si MOSFETs

The two-dimensional models for symmetrical double-material double-gate(DM-DG) strained Si(s-Si) metal–oxide semiconductor field effect transistors(MOSFETs) are presented. The surface potential and the surface electric field expressions have been obtained by solving Poisson's equation. The models of threshold voltage and subthreshold current are obtained based on the surface potential expression. The surface potential and the surface electric field are compared with those of single-material double-gate(SM-DG) MOSFETs. The effects of different device parameters on the threshold voltage and the subthreshold current are demonstrated. The analytical models give deep insight into the device parameters design. The analytical results obtained from the proposed models show good matching with the simulation results using DESSIS.     

THE WIDTH EFFECT OF ELECTRODE IN THE FREEDERICKSZ TRANSITION OF NEMATIC LIQUID CRYSTALS

The Freedericksz transition of nematic liquid crystals with limited width of ele ctrode on substrates of the cell is investigated. Solving two-dimensional nonli near partial differential equations by means of numerical method, we obtained the sp ace distribution of the director of the liquid crystal. The threshold voltage is found to depend on the ratio of the electrode width l to the thickness of the liquid crystal layer d. The deflect angleθ of the director lapses near the edge of the electrode and the width of this lapsing area are discussed.     

Influence of Flexoelectric Effect on Director Alignment of Nematic Liquid Crystals in Axial Arrangement Cylindrical Cells

A positive nematic liquid crystal(5CB) sample is confined in cylindrical cells under strong or weak axial anchoring boundary conditions when a radial nonuniform low-frequency electric field is applied and the flexoelectric effect is taken into account.Based on the Frank elastic free energy,the surface energy of the Rapini–Papoular approximation,the polarization free energy and the flexoelectric free energy caused by electric field,we obtain the free energy density of the nematic and solve the corresponding Euler–Lagrange equation numerically.We investigate the director distribution,the critical voltage and the critical exponent of nematic liquid crystal in cylindrical cells.It follows that the critical exponent is the classical one.It is also shown that the critical voltage in the system is affected by the flexoelectric effect,the geometric effect and radial weak anchoring effect on the cylindrical surfaces.A new type of director transition caused by the flexoelectric effect,the dielectric coupling effect and the radial weak anchoring effect is found.     

Spin-3/2 Ising model AFM/AFM two-layer lattice with crystal field

The spin-3/2 Ising model is investigated for the case of antiferromagnetic (AFM/AFM) interactions on the two-layer Bethe lattice by using the exact recursion relations in the pairwise approach for given coordination numbers q=3, 4 and 6 when the layers are under the influences of equal external magnetic and equal crystal fields. The ground state (GS) phase diagrams are obtained on the different planes in detail and then the temperature-dependent phase diagrams of the system are calculated accordingly. It is observed that the system presents both second- and first-order phase transitions for all q, therefore, tricritical points. It is also found that the system exhibits double-critical end points and isolated points. The model also presents two Néel temperatures, T_N, and the existence of which leads to the reentrant behaviour.     

Phonon-assisted intersubband transitions in wurtziteGaN/InxGal_xN quantum wells

A detailed numerical calculation on the phonon-assisted intersubband transition rates of electrons in wurtzite GaN/In x Ga 1 x N quantum wells is presented. The quantum-confined Stark effect, induced by the built-in electric field, and the ternary mixed crystal effect are considered. The electron states are obtained by iteratively solving the coupled Schrdinger and Poisson equations. The dispersion properties of each type of phonon modes are considered in the derivation of Fermi’s golden rule to evaluate the transition rates. It is indicated that the interface and half-space phonon scattering play an important role in the process of 1-2 radiative transition. The transition rate is also greatly reduced by the built-in electric field. This work can be helpful for the structural design and simulation of new semiconductor lasers.     

Ionization of Atoms and the Thomas－Fermi Model for the Electric Field in Crystal Planar Channels

The electric field in the crystal planar channels is studied by the Thomas-Fermi method.The ThomasFermi equation and the corresponding boundary conditions are derived for the crystal palanar channels,The numerical solution for the elctric field in the channels between(110) Planes of the single crystal silicaon and the critical angles of channelling protons in them are shown.Reasonable agreements with the experimental data are obtained.The results show that the Thomas-Fermi method for the crystal works well in this study,and a microscopic research of the channel electric field with the contribution of all atoms and the atomic ionization being taken into account is practical.     

Intersubband transitions in InxAl（l-x）N/InyGa（l-y）N quantum well operating at 1.55 μm

In this paper, we theoretically study the effects of doping concentration ND and an external electric field on the intersubband transitions in InxAl（l-x）N/InyGa（l-y）N single quantum well by solving the Schrodinger and Poisson equations self-consistently. Obtained results including transition energies, the band structure, and the optical absorption have been discussed. The lowest three intersubband transitions （E2 -El）, （E3 -El）, and （E3 -E2） are calculated as functions of doping concentration ND. By increasing the doping concentration ND, the depletion effect can be reduced, and the ionized electrons will compensate the internal electric field which results from the spontaneous polarization. Our results show that an optimum concentration ND exists for which the transition 0.8 eV （1.55 μm） is carried out. Finally, the dependence of the optical absorption α13（ω） on the external electric field and doping concentration is studied. The maximum of the optical absorption can be red-shifted or blue-shifted through varying the doping concentration and the external electric field. The obtained results can be used for designing optical fiber telecommunications operating at 1.55 μm.     

Intersubband transitions in In_xAl_(1-x)N/In_yGa_(1-y)N quantum well operating at 1.55 μm

In this paper, we theoretically study the effects of doping concentration NDand an external electric field on the intersubband transitions in InxAl(1-x)N/InyGa(1-y)N single quantum well by solving the Schr¨odinger and Poisson equations self-consistently. Obtained results including transition energies, the band structure, and the optical absorption have been discussed. The lowest three intersubband transitions(E2- E1),(E3- E1), and(E3- E2) are calculated as functions of doping concentration ND. By increasing the doping concentration ND, the depletion effect can be reduced, and the ionized electrons will compensate the internal electric field which results from the spontaneous polarization. Our results show that an optimum concentration NDexists for which the transition 0.8 eV(1.55 μm) is carried out. Finally, the dependence of the optical absorption α13(ω) on the external electric field and doping concentration is studied. The maximum of the optical absorption can be red-shifted or blue-shifted through varying the doping concentration and the external electric field. The obtained results can be used for designing optical fiber telecommunications operating at 1.55 μm.     

Excitation and propagation of axisymmetric longitudinal guided waves in pipes immersed in infinite liquid media

The transient elastodynamic responses of the vacuum-filled and liquid-filled pipes surrounded by infinite liquid to external axisymmetric forces are simulated by employing the acoustic-structural coupled finite element method. The time-frequency distributions of the transients waveforms are obtained by the short-time Fourier transform （STFT）. Then the influence of the distribution of the external forces on the excitation of the guided waves is analyzed. The study shows that the L（O, 2） mode in the vacuum-filled pipe surrounded by the liquid is suitable for the pipe inspection because it is the fastest mode in a weakly dispersive and at- tenuative region of frequency. And it can be excited with high efficiency in the above region of frequency if the axisymmetric external force is applied on the inner or outer surface of the pipe axially. Analogously, the L（0,3） and L（0,4） modes in the liquid-filled pipe surrounded by the liquid are suitable for the pipe inspection.