Nematic films at chemically structured surfaces

We investigate theoretically the morphology of a thin nematic film adsorbed at flat substrate patterned by stripes with alternating aligning properties, normal and tangential respectively. We construct a simple 'exactly-solvable' effective interfacial model where the liquid crystal distort...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of physics. Condensed matter 2017-02, Vol.29 (7), p.074002-074002
Main Authors: Silvestre, N M, Telo da Gama, M M, Tasinkevych, M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
nematic films
nematic interfaces
patterned surfaces
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Summary:We investigate theoretically the morphology of a thin nematic film adsorbed at flat substrate patterned by stripes with alternating aligning properties, normal and tangential respectively. We construct a simple 'exactly-solvable' effective interfacial model where the liquid crystal distortions are accounted for via an effective interface potential. We find that chemically patterned substrates can strongly deform the nematic-air interface. The amplitude of this substrate-induced undulations increases with decreasing average film thickness and with increasing surface pattern pitch. We find a regime where the interfacial deformation may be described in terms of a material-independent universal scaling function. Surprisingly, the predictions of the effective interfacial model agree semi-quantitatively with the results of the numerical solution of a full model based on the Landau-de Gennes theory coupled to a square-gradient phase field free energy functional for a two phase system.
ISSN:0953-8984
1361-648X
DOI:10.1088/1361-648X/aa4fd6