Controlled decay of electrically induced deformations in nematic liquid crystals

The transient behavior of electrically induced deformations of parallel oriented nematic liquid crystal layers was investigated. The nematic material used was a mixture of disubstituted benzoyloxybenzoic acid esters the dielectric anisotropy of which is positive at dc and low frequencies, and changes sign in the kHz range. The decay time of a deformation induced by a low frequency field can be considerably reduced by switching the frequency to the range where the dielectric anisotropy is negative. This effect becomes even more pronounced for higher viscosities.