Electric Field Effects in Nematic Polymers

FIGURE 4.39. Temperature dependence of the anchoring energy for homogeneously oriented 5CB in the nematic and isotropic phases (figures at the curves are related to various samples with different quality of orientation). 

Nematic polymers have much in common with conventional, low-mass nematics. Their behavior in an electric field is usually described in the firame-work of the same Leslie-Ericksen approach though, strictly speaking, some corrections must be done in the set of nematodynamic equations to take into account the coupling between the motion of mesogenic units and the backbone of a polymer [228]. The field behavior of thermotropic nematic polymers differs considerably from that of lyotropic solutions of long rodlike molecules (like poly-7-benzyl-glutamate) and the two systems will be discussed separately (see also a recent review article [279]). 

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