中国物理B ›› 2018, Vol. 27 ›› Issue (4): 46801-046801.doi: 10.1088/1674-1056/27/4/046801

• CONDENSED MATTER: STRUCTURAL, MECHANICAL, AND THERMAL PROPERTIES • 上一篇    下一篇

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

Erfan Kadivar, Mojtaba Farrokhbin   

  1. 1. Department of Physics, Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz 71555-313, Iran;
    2. Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences, Yazd University, Yazd 89195-741, Iran
  • 收稿日期:2017-11-11 修回日期:2018-01-03 出版日期:2018-04-05 发布日期:2018-04-05
  • 通讯作者: Erfan Kadivar, Mojtaba Farrokhbin E-mail:erfan.kadivar@sutech.ac.ir;m.farrokhbin@gmail.com

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

Erfan Kadivar1, Mojtaba Farrokhbin2   

  1. 1. Department of Physics, Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz 71555-313, Iran;
    2. Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences, Yazd University, Yazd 89195-741, Iran
  • Received:2017-11-11 Revised:2018-01-03 Online:2018-04-05 Published:2018-04-05
  • Contact: Erfan Kadivar, Mojtaba Farrokhbin E-mail:erfan.kadivar@sutech.ac.ir;m.farrokhbin@gmail.com

摘要: 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.

关键词: anchoring surface effect, ferronematics, Frederiks transition, Maxwell construction

Abstract: 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.

Key words: anchoring surface effect, ferronematics, Frederiks transition, Maxwell construction

中图分类号:  (Phase transitions and critical phenomena)

  • 68.35.Rh
77.84.Nh (Liquids, emulsions, and suspensions; liquid crystals) 64.70.M- (Transitions in liquid crystals) 05.70.Np (Interface and surface thermodynamics)