Related papers: The Freedericksz transition in a spatially varying…
Fr\'eedericksz transitions in nematic liquid crystals are re-examined with a focus on differences between systems with magnetic fields and those with electric fields. A magnetic field can be treated as uniform in a liquid-crystal medium;…
The critical field of the Freedericksz transition and switching dynamics are investigated for polymer stabilized nematic liquid crystals as a function of polymer concentration. A simple phenomenological model is proposed to describe the…
Electric field-induced splay of molecular orientation, called the Fr\'eedericksz transition, is a fundamental electro-optic phenomenon in nonpolar nematic liquid crystals. In a ferroelectric nematic NF with a spontaneous electric…
In this paper, a Freedericksz-like positional transition is found for a spherical micro-droplet suspended in a nematic liquid crystal cell in the presence of an external electric field. Based on the numerical calculation of elastic energy…
We study light transmission through a homeotropically oriented nematic liquid crystal cell and solve self-consistently a nonlinear equation for the nematic director coupled to Maxwell's equations. We demonstrate that above a certain…
Systems involving nematic liquid crystals subjected to magnetic fields or electric fields are modeled using the Oseen-Frank macroscopic continuum theory, and general criteria are developed to assess the local stability of equilibrium…
In the framework of continuum theory we study orientational transitions induced by electric and magnetic fields in ferronematics, i.e., in liquid-crystalline suspensions of ferromagnetic particles. We have shown that in a certain electric…
The Fermi surface can be changed by different external conditions like, e.g., pressure or doping. It can lead to a change in the Fermi surface topology, called as the Lifshitz transition. Here, we briefly describe the Lifshitz transitions…
The multidimensional energy surface of a cholesteric liquid crystal in a planar cell is investigated as a function of spherical coordinates determining the director orientation. Minima on the energy surface correspond to the stable states…
The symmetry breaking Freedericksz transitions, when a uniformly aligned nematic state is replaced by a homogeneously or periodically distorted state, have been extensively studied before. Here we analyse the influence of the saddle-splay…
The remarkable material DIO presents fascinating behaviors. It has been extensively studied as one of the first materials exhibiting a ferroelectric nematic phase. However, at higher temperatures it exhibits what has been termed the Smectic…
We demonstrate that one-dimensional photonic crystals with pure nematic liquid-crystal defects can operate as all-optical switching devices based on optical orientational nonlinearities of liquid crystals. We show that such a periodic…
A long time ago, Brochard and de Gennes predicted the possibility of significantly decreasing the critical magnetic field of the Fredericksz transition (the magnetic Fredericksz threshold) in a mixture of nematic liquid crystals and…
We investigate the effect of a strong magnetic field on a three dimensional smectic A liquid crystal. We identify a critical field above which the uniform layered state loses stability; this is associated to the onset of layer undulations.…
Theoretical study of dynamical phenomena induced by a linearly polarized plane wave incident perpendicularly on a planar aligned nematic layer with the light intensity as the control parameter is reported. We find the threshold of the…
We study the transition between Zeeman levels of an arbitrary spin placed into a regular time-dependent field and a random field with the Gaussian distribution. One component of the regular field changes its sign at some moment of time,…
We report on the alignment transition of a nematic liquid crystal from initially homeotropic to quasi-planar due to field-induced anchoring breaking. The initial homeotropic alignment is achieved by Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers. In this…
An unresolved issue in the theory of liquid crystals is the molecular basis of the electroclinic effect in the smectic-A phase. Recent x-ray scattering experiments suggest that, in a class of siloxane-containing liquid crystals, an electric…
We suggest that tunable orientational nonlinearity of nematic liquid crystals can be employed for all-optical switching in periodic photonic structures with liquid-crystal defects. We consider a one-dimensional periodic structure of Si…
We show theoretically that thermomechanical effects in dye-doped nematic liquid crystals when illuminated by laser beams, can become important and lead to molecular reorientation at intensities substantially lower than that needed for…