Abstract
Abstract
In the presented work the role of the surfacelike (splay-bend) elastic constant in the Frank’s energy of nematic liquid crystals for orientational instability in the thin nematic films is considered. It is shown that nontrivial periodical perturbations exist in the nematic film with undisturbed planar director orientation in case of sufficiently large value of splay-bend constant. For these solutions the relations between splay-bend constant, another Frank’s constants and layer thickness are received and studied. These correlations allow us to make new explanation for certain experimental effects and to present method for surfacelike constant value measurement.
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy