Effects of fields and anchoring on biaxial nematic ordering

Abstract

AbstractSymmetry of a nematic liquid crystal phase is broken by an anchoring wall and also by an external field. Nematic system sandwiched between biaxial anchoring walls is introduced as a correspondent to a bulk nematic system exposed to a couple of fields, an electric field and a magnetic one in directions perpendicular to each other, and thermal behaviours of the system are studied. The crossover between a homeotropic structure and homogeneous one occurs, similarly to the bulk system in the fields, in which the anchoring condition of coexistence is shown to have the same expression as the one at the bulk. As to a characteristic phenomenon at the sandwiched system, it is proved that an appearance of a biaxial nematic order suppresses a uniaxial nematic order. A surface transition, i.e., a wetting phenomenon is shown to occur also in the biaxial nematics, even though the uniaxial order is suppressed therein.