Boundary‐Roughness Effects in Nematic Liquid Crystals

摘要: We study the equilibrium configuration of a nematic liquid crystal bounded by rough surface. The wrinkling surface induces partial melting in degree orientation. This softened region penetrates bulk up to length scale which turns out coincide with characteristic wavelength corrugation. Within boundary layer where orientation decreases, tilt angle steepens and gives rise nontrivial structure, may be interpreted terms an effective weak anchoring potential. determine how extrapolation is related microscopic parameters. also analyze crucial role played conditions assumed on Quite different features emerge depending whether they are Neumann‐ or Dirichlet‐like. These useful ascertain experimentally interacts external boundary.