Experimental study of a textural transition in liquid crystals under shear stress induced by surface friction

Results of a study of the optical response of liquid crystals with helical supramolecular structure to surfacefriction-induced shear stress in aerodynamic experiments are reported. The effect of re-orientation of molecules from confocal (light-scattering) to planar (selectively reflecting light) texture is considered. The textural transition is examined by the spectral and colorimetric methods. Dependences of the reflection spectra of the formed planar texture on time and on the mean shear-stress level were obtained. It is shown that the dependence of the texture transition time on the shear-stress level can be approximated, in a logarithmic scale, with a linear dependence; this allows using the effect for flow diagnostics.