Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals Science and Technology. Section A. Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, Vol.361, 149-155, 2001
Surface-modified hysteresis of short pitch cholesteric-nematic mixtures under externally applied fields
Dynamic hysteresis behaviors are subjected to testing in short Ditch cholesteric-nematic liquid crystal layers at the various boundary conditions. Modification of hysteresis properties near the field induced cholesteric-nematic transition was observed for the differently treated boundary layers and inspected by direct optical methods. It was found the interaction energy between liquid crystal (LC) and boundary layers plays rather essential role in nucleation process than director configuration at the interface and if this interaction energy is essential for tangential constrains, the nucleation occurs mainly at the surface interface and then permeate into the bulk gradually. The experimental results show an influence of surface factor even for a big ratio d/P-o.