Fluctuating Flexoelectric Membranes in Asymmetric Viscoelastic Media: Power Spectrum through Mechanical Network and Transfer Function Models

Abstract

Flexoelectric liquid crystalline membranes immersed in asymmetric viscoelastic media is a material system model with physiological applications such as outer hair cells (OHCs), where membrane oscillations generate bulk flow. Motivated by this physiological process, here we extend our previous work by characterizing the force transmission output of our model in addition to viscoelastic fluid flow, since solid–fluid interactions are an essential feature of confined physiological flow and flow in immersed elastic structures. In this work, the rigidity of the confinement results in a passive force reception, while more complete solid–fluid interactions will be considered in the future. A significant contribution of this work is a new asymmetry linear viscoelastic electro-rheological model and the obtained implicit relation between force transmission and flow generation and how this relation is modulated by electric field frequency and the material properties of the device. Maximal force and flow are found at resonant frequencies of asymmetry viscoelastic bulk phases, flexoelectric and dispersion mechanisms through the elastic and Womersley numbers.