Flexoelectric Effect in Biaxial Nematics |
| A. Kapanowski
Marian Smoluchowski Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, W.S. Reymonta 4, 30-059 Cracow, Poland |
| Received: January 13, 2012; In final form: March 23, 2012 |
| Full Text PDF |
| The flexoelectric effect provides a linear coupling between electric polarization and orientational deformation in liquid crystals. It influences many electrooptical phenomena and it is used in some bistable nematic devices. A statistical theory of dipole flexoelectric polarization in biaxial nematic liquid crystals is used to calculate temperature dependence of order parameters, elastic constants, and flexoelectric coefficients. The splitting of the two Meyer flexoelectric coefficients and the appearance of new flexoelectric coefficients is obtained at the uniaxial-biaxial nematic transition. The ordering of the split flexoelectric coefficients corresponds to the ordering of the split elastic constants. |
| DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.122.146 PACS numbers: 61.30.Cz, 77.84.Nh |