Director reorientation in twisted nematic liquid crystals due to thermomechanical effect

We have studied molecular director reorientation in a twisted nematic liquid crystal induced by a two-dimensional temperature gradient. We studied the effect of rate change between the temperature gradients in two directions. Our obtained director reorientations are in the range that can be observed experimentally very easily.     

Thermomechanical reorientation in nematic liquid crystals

Thermomechanical mechanism of the director reorientation in twisted nematic liquid crystals caused by the one-dimensional longitudinal temperature gradient is predicted and studied theoretically. The calculated director reorientations are in the range that can be measured experimentally very easily.     

Hydrodynamics of nematic liquid crystals due to direct volume expansion

Hydrodynamics of planar nematic liquid crystal molecules under the influence of horizontal pressure gradient was studied, theoretically. The pressure gradient is due to nematic liquid crystal volume expansion which is a consequence of the incompressibility of the liquid. The resulting director reorientation which is due to coupling between the director orientation and fluidity of the liquid is calculated numerically for the hard and weak anchoring conditions at the cell walls.     

Molecular dynamics simulation of thermomechanical coupling in cholesteric liquid crystals

The lack of a centre of inversion in a cholesteric liquid crystal allows linear cross-couplings between thermodynamic forces and fluxes that are polar vectors and pseudo vectors respectively. This makes it possible for a temperature gradient parallel to the cholesteric axis to induce a torque which rotates the director. This phenomenon is known as the Lehmann effect. The converse is also possible: one can drive a heat current by rotating the director. In this work a recently developed non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation algorithm is applied to calculate the cross-coupling coefficient between the temperature gradient and the torque for a molecular model system based on the Gay-Berne fluid. According to the Onsager reciprocity relations this cross-coupling coefficient is equal to the coupling between the director angular velocity and the heat current. The cross-coupling coefficients are found to be very small but non-zero and the Onsager reciprocity relations are satisfied within the statistical uncertainty.     

The principle of non-mechanical transport of a liquid crystal in thin capillaries

The non-mechanical principle of transport of a liquid crystal (LC) encapsulated in a narrow cavity between two coaxially arranged cylinders is introduced based on the interaction of the temperature and director field gradients. The temperature gradient is created due to a heat flow from the inner cylinder surface, whereas the temperature on the outer cylinder surface is maintained constant. The director field gradient is caused by the deformation of the planar-oriented LC cavity upon exposure to a double electrostatic layer, which naturally appears at the LC phase-solid interface. The size of the gap between the bounding surfaces, cylinder curvatures, and thermal conditions are determined, which allow initiation of the LC phase flow in the horizontal direction.     

Formation of a temperature gradient in a hybrid-oriented liquid-crystal cell in response to shear stress

The orientational relaxation of the director, velocity, and temperature fields in a hybrid-oriented liquid-crystal cell in response to a shear stress applied to one of the cell surfaces has been investigated. The cases of the complete and partial thermal insulation of one of the cell surfaces have been considered under the condition where a constant temperature is maintained at the other cell surface. The relaxation time and the influence of the velocity field on the reorientation of the director field have been analyzed for a number of hydrodynamic regimes arising in the liquid-crystal cell under the effect of the shear stress and the temperature gradient formed over the cross section of the liquid-crystal cell.     

Transport properties of cholesteric liquid crystals studied by molecular dynamics simulation

We have studied the transport properties of a cholesteric liquid crystal by molecular dynamics simulation. The molecules consist of six soft ellipsoids of revolution, the axes of which are perpendicular to the line connecting their centres of symmetry. The angle between the symmetry axes of two adjacent ellipsoids is 7.5°, so the molecules are twisted. At high densities they form a cholesteric phase where their twist axes are oriented around the cholesteric axis and the symmetry axes of the ellipsoids are approximately parallel to the local director. We have been particularly interested in thermomechanical coupling or the Lehmann effect, which arises when a temperature gradient parallel to the cholesteric axis induces a torque that rotates the director. The converse is also possible: rotation of the director can drive a heat current. The thermal conductivity, the twist viscosity, the cross-coupling coefficient between the temperature gradient and the torque, and the cross-coupling coefficient between the director angular velocity and the heat current have been calculated by non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation methods (NEMD) and by evaluation of the Green-Kubo relations from equilibrium simulations. Two ensembles have been utilized: the ordinary canonical ensemble and another ensemble where the director angular velocity is constrained to be a constant of motion. All the methods give consistent results for the twist viscosity and the thermal conductivity. The NEMD estimates of the cross-coupling coefficients agree within a relative error of 20%. This is consistent with the Onsager reciprocity relations that state that the two cross-coupling coefficients should be equal. The relative error of the Green-Kubo estimates is about 100% even though the order of magnitude is the same as that of the NEMD estimates.     

Formation of vortex flows in thin nematic cells

The director field reorientation and the formation of steady vortex flows in doubly and obliquely oriented thin liquid-crystal cells under the temperature gradient have been theoretically described within the nonlinear generalization of the classical Ericksen-Leslie theory for describing liquid crystal hydrodynamics. This generalization allowing the consideration of thermomechanical contributions to the shear stress and to the entropy balance equation has made it possible to describe the formation of a steady two-vortex flow in doubly oriented liquid-crystal cells.     

Electric field effect on refraction of light in a layer of chiral liquid crystal with large pitch

The effect of an alternating electric field on the trajectory of an extraordinary light wave in a layer of a chiral liquid crystal with a 180° turn of the director is studied. In this structure, in the absence of the field and at a large angle of incidence of the light wave on the liquid crystal layer, the light undergoes refraction inside the layer. It is shown that the deformation of the director that arises under the action of the electric field changes the character of refraction of the extraordinary wave and the layer begins to transmit the light. The threshold voltage of this effect is determined. The dynamics of the effect is studied. At large voltages, in addition to the extraordinary wave, an ordinary light wave is observed in the light passed through the cell. The ordinary wave intensity is modulated by the initial frequency of the control signal, whereas the extraordinary wave intensity is modulated by the double initial frequency.     

Effect of magnetic fields on out-of-plane orientations of nematic liquid crystalline polymers under simple shear flow

The effect of magnetic fields on out-of-plane orientations of liquid crystalline polymers (LCPs) under simple shear flows is numerically analyzed using the Doi–Hess equation. The evolution equation for the probability distribution function of the LCP molecules is directly solved without any approximation closure. The initial director is parallel to the vorticity direction. Two cases of the magnetic fields are considered (1) the magnetic field parallel to the flow direction, and (2) the magnetic field parallel to the velocity gradient direction. For both cases a log-rolling orientation state is detected at low shear rates. However, the director is quickly aligned along the direction of magnetic fields because of the deformation of molecules. The field affects on the scalar order parameter rather than the major orientation direction for the magnetic field parallel to the flow direction. On the other hand regarding the magnetic field along the vorticity gradient direction, the effect of the magnetic field is more remarkable on the major orientation in comparison with the effect on the scalar order parameter. Also it is be found that the order parameter is increased obviously with increasing the magnetic fields. It is an efficient way to improve the performance of LCP materials.     

Temperature variations in the director orientation and anchoring energy at the surface of cholesteric layers

Slight changes with temperature in the director orientation at the surface of a perfect planar cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) layer, which are precursors of a jump in the pitch of the cholesteric helix, are observed by measuring the temperature dependence of the optical transmission spectra of the layer. The observed changes in the director orientation are described in the framework of the continuum theory of CLCs, supplemented with allowance for the surface anchoring forces. In particular, the angle of deviation of the director at the surface from the alignment direction at the exact temperature of the jump in pitch is expressed in terms of the anchoring potential. The relation obtained is use to find the anchoring potential in the samples. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 63, No. 1, 37–42 (10 January 1996)     

The influence of temperature fields on the orientational relaxation in hybrid liquid-crystal cells

The relaxation of the director field $ \hat n The relaxation of the director field , the velocity field v, and the shear and normal components of the stress tensor in a hybrid liquid-crystal cell with differently heated bounding surfaces is investigated theoretically. The system of nonlinear hydrodynamic equations that describe the director reorientation with allowance made for the field of velocities v induced by the director reorientation, on the one hand, and by the temperature gradient, on the other hand, is solved numerically. The relaxation time and the influence of the velocity field on the relaxation processes are analyzed for a number of hydrodynamic regimes arising in the hybrid liquid-crystal cell under the effect of the temperature field. Original Russian Text ? A.V. Zakharov, A.A. Vakulenko, 2008, published in Fizika Tverdogo Tela, 2008, Vol. 50, No. 3, pp. 557–564.     

Temperature and orientation dependence of surface relief gratings based on dye-doped polymer film with the interface of nematic liquid crystals

The formation of surface relief grating on dye-doped polymer film with the interface of nematic liquid crystals has been investigated by means of the holographic technique. The first-order diffraction efficiency of surface relief grating depends on the temperature and the orientation of molecular director in the interface of nematic liquid crystals. The diffraction efficiency is roughly independent of thermal fluctuations of molecular director in the most part of nematic temperature range and apparently drops near the transition temperature. The morphology of surface relief grating demonstrates that the surface modulation is larger for molecular director parallel to the groove direction. The experimental result also shows that the first-order diffraction efficiency is dependent on the surface modulation of surface relief grating.     

Bistable switching in chiral nematic liquid crystal layers with a 2π-twist ground state

We present experimental evidence and theoretical justification for the phenomenon of bistable electrooptical switching in nematic liquid crystals doped with chiral compounds so that the ground state corresponds to a 360° helical twist of the director. The system exhibits switching between the ground and a metastable unwound states. The observed effect differs from the well-known Berreman-Heffner bistable switching by the absence of a topologically nonequivalent ground state of the liquid crystal layer with a 180° twist of the director.     

Orientational structure transformations caused by the electric-field-induced ionic modification of the interface in nematic droplets

The films of a polymer-dispersed nematic liquid crystal doped with an ionic surfactant were studied. The surface-anchoring modification effect caused by the local increase in the concentration of surface-active ions was observed at the polymer-liquid crystal interface under the action of an electric field. The modification of the boundary conditions leads to the transformation of the orientational structure of the nematic droplets and, as a result, to an appreciable change in their texture patterns and light-scattering efficiency at the interfaces. The monopolar director configurations (normal and curved) arising in the process of orientational structure transformations are considered and their typical textures are demonstrated. The possibility that the monopolar structure can be formed is theoretically substantiated by the computer simulation of the director field in a nematic droplet with the boundary conditions corresponding to the experiment.     

Molecular field theory for nematic liquid crystal film with finite layers

The nematic liquid crystal film composed of n molecular layers is studied based upon a spatially anisotropic pair potential, which reproduces approximately the elastic free energy density. On condition that the system has perfect nematic order, as in the Lebwohl—Lasher model, the director in the film is isotropic. The effect of the temperature is investigated by means of molecular field theory. Some new results are obtained. Firstly, symmetry breaking takes place when taking account of the temperature, and the state with the director along the normal of the film has the lowest free energy. Secondly, the N—I phase transition temperature increases as an effect of finite sizes instead of decreasing as in the Lebwohl—Lasher model. Thirdly, the nematic order is induced in the layers near the surface in the isotropic phase.     

温度梯度区域熔化作用下熔池迁移的元胞自动机模拟

本文采用耦合凝固和熔化效应的二维元胞自动机(cellular automaton, CA)模型,对温度梯度区域熔化(temperature gradient zone melting, TGZM)效应引起的熔池在固液两相区中的迁移现象进行模拟研究.模拟分析了抽拉速度、熔池初始位置、温度梯度和合金成分等因素对TGZM动力学的影响,并将模拟结果与解析模型的预测结果进行比较验证.通过模拟发现,在温度梯度作用下,熔池总是向着高温方向迁移;当抽拉速度低于或高于临界抽拉速度时,熔池朝向移动的液相线或固相线迁移;对于给定的抽拉速度,位于糊状区内临界位置以上的熔池会迁移进入液相,而位于临界位置以下的熔池会逐步靠近固相线.此外,温度梯度越高,合金成分越低,熔池的迁移速度越快.     

Experimental evidence of the Halperin-Lubensky-Ma effect in liquid crystals

The orientational order parameter decrease, due to nematic director macroscopic fluctuations, is obtained by birefringence measurements around the nematic <--> smectic-A transition temperature of the liquid crystal 4'-n-octyl-4-cyanobiphenyl. The measured nematic order reduction shows the same amplitude as the secondary order parameter discontinuity at the transition providing direct evidence of the Halperin-Lubensky-Ma effect. The importance of nematic director thermal fluctuations on the character of the transition is revealed as their quenching by an electric field of approximately 20 V/micrometer restores the second order character of the transition.     

液晶孤子实验中指向角的时空分布

本文指出,从液晶透射的偏振光(单色光和白光)干涉条纹时空分布可以得到多种可能的液晶指向角时空分布。考虑具体物理条件(如指向切流孤子方程,非线性波局域速度随时间变化等)可以消除上述不确定性。文中对向列相切流液晶孤子情形做了详细讨论。数值计算结果与有关实验的比较表明,如果指向切流孤子方程(一维)是该实验的合理描述,那么,文献中指向角空间分布曲线是与该实验观察到白光下三条黑线速度方向相同这一事实相抵触的。本文给出了与上述实验比较一致的指向角分布。 关键词：     

Experimental Investigation of Thermocapillary Convection in a Liquid Layer with Evaporating Interface

Thermocapillary convection coupling with the evaporation effect of evaporating liquids is studied experimentally. This study focused on an evaporation liquid layer in a rectangular cavity subjected to a horizontal temperature gradient when the top evaporating surface is open to air, while most previous works only studied pure thermocapillary convection without evaporation. Two liquids with different evaporating rates are used to study the coupling of evaporation and thermocapillary convection, and the interfacial temperature profiles for different temperature gradients are measured. The experimental results indicate evidently the influence of evaporation effect on the thermocapillary convection and interfacial temperature profiles. The steady multicellular flow and the oscillatory multicellular flow in the evaporation liquid layer are observed by using the particle-image-velocimetry method.