Competing modes of instability in an electrically driven nematic liquid crystal with a small positive dielectric anisotropy

Confined Electroconvective and Flexoelectric Instabilities Deep in the Freedericksz State of Nematic CB7CB

We report wormlike flexoelectric structures evolving deep in the Freedericksz state of a nematic layer of the liquid crystal cyanobiphenyl-(CH2)₇-cyanobiphenyl. They form in the predominantly splay-bend thin boundary layers and are built up of solitary flexoelectric domains of the Bobylev-Pikin type. Their formation is possibly triggered by the gradient flexoelectric surface instability that remains optically discernible up to unusually high frequencies. The threshold voltage at which the worms form scales as square root of the frequency; in their extended state, worms often appear as labyrinthine structures on a section of loops that separate regions of opposite director deviation. Such asymmetric loops are also derived through pincement-like dissociation of ring-shaped walls. Formation of isolated domains of bulk electroconvection precedes the onset of surface instabilities. In essence, far above the Freedericksz threshold, the twisted nematic layer behaves as a combination of two orthogonally oriented planar half-layers destabilized by localized flexoelectric distortion.

Effect of waveform of the driving field on electroconvection near the dielectric inversion frequency

This paper concerns the instability behavior of a nematic liquid crystal in the region of dielectric inversion frequency for different waveforms of the exciting electric field. The critical frequency separating the regimes of dielectric and electroconvective primary bifurcation states shows a notable dependence on the waveform. In particular, it is found to undergo a large downshift for square-wave and sawtooth-wave fields as compared to sine-wave and triangle-wave fields. This seems to underscore the significance of harmonics in nonsinusoidal fields for the evolution of patterned electroconvective states. The study also deals with the flow pattern associated with the periodic state and the sequence of secondary instabilities occurring at higher fields to emphasize the role of the Carr-Helfrich mechanism for the instabilities in this region. The relevance of dielectric heating to the formation of transient structures is also pointed out.

Polarity-sensitive transient patterned state in a twisted nematic liquid crystal driven by very low frequency fields

We report, for a rodlike nematic liquid crystal with small positive dielectric and conductivity anisotropies, and in the 90°-twisted configuration, low frequency (<2 Hz) square wave electric field generated Carr-Helfrich director modulation appearing transiently over a few seconds at each polarity reversal and vanishing almost completely under steady field conditions. Significantly, the instability is polarity sensitive, with the maximum distortion localized in the vicinity of the negative electrode, rather than in the midplane of the layer. This is revealed by the wave vector alternating in the two halves of the driving cycle between the alignment directions at the two substrates. Besides the Carr-Helfrich mechanism, quadrupolar flexoelectric polarization arising under electric field gradient is strongly indicated as being involved in the development of the transient periodic order. Similar transient instability is also observed in other nematic compounds with varying combinations of dielectric and conductivity anisotropies, showing its general nature. The study also deals with various characteristics of the electro-optic effect that emerge from the temporal variation of optical response for different driving voltages, frequencies, and temperatures.

Instabilities Across the Isotropic Conductivity Point in a Nematic Phenyl Benzoate under AC Driving

We characterize the sequence of bifurcations generated by ac fields in a nematic layer held between unidirectionally rubbed ITO electrodes. The material, which possesses a negative dielectric anisotropy epsilona and an inversion temperature for electrical conductivity anisotropy sigmaa, exhibits a monostable tilted alignment near TIN, the isotropic-nematic point. On cooling, an anchoring transition to the homeotropic configuration occurs close to the underlying smectic phase. The field experiments are performed for (i) negative sigmaa and homeotropic alignment, and (ii) weakly positive sigmaa and nearly homeotropic alignment. Under ac driving, the Freedericksz transition is followed by bifurcation into various patterned states. Among them are the striped states that seem to belong to the dielectric regime and localized hybrid instabilities. Very significantly, the patterned instabilities are not excited by dc fields, indicating their possible gradient flexoelectric origin. The Carr-Helfrich mechanism-based theories that take account of flexoelectric terms can explain the observed electroconvective effects only in part.