Subject nematic

Presumed ferroelectric effects in liquid crystals were reported by Williams at RCA in Princeton, U. S. A., as early as 1963, and thus at the very beginning of the modern era of liquid crystal research [5]. By subjecting nematics to rather high dc fields, he provoked domain patterns that resembled those found in solid ferroelectrics. The ferroelectric interpretation seemed to be strengthened by subsequent observations of hysteresis loops by Kapustin and Vistin and by Williams and Heilmeier [7]. However, these patterns turned out to be related to electrohydrodynamic instabilities, which are well understood today (see, for instance, [8], Sec. 2.4.3 or [9], Sec. 2.4.2), and it is also well known that certain loops (similar to ferroelectric hysteresis) may be obtained from a nonlinear lossy material (see [10], Sec. 2.4.2). As we know today, nematics do not show ferroelectric or even polar properties. In order to find such properties we have to lower the symmetry until we come to the tilted smectics, and further lowering their symmetry by making them chiral. The prime example of such a liquid crystal phase is the smectic C. ... 

The study of the cholesteric mesophases obtained by doping thermotropic nematics with chiral, nonracemic compounds, has lead to relevant information about the stereochemistry of the dopants. Chiral interactions change the structure of the phase and therefore molecular chirality can be mapped onto an achiral (nematic) phase to yield a superstructural phase chirality. In 1984 Sol-ladie and Zimmermann published the first review summarizing the state of the art at that time.52 Later on, several review articles updated this subject.53-55... 

When r s, one has interconversion between operators Br and Bs, and Rrs is a cross-relaxation rate. Note that the cross-relaxation may or may not contain interference effects depending on the indices l and /, which keep track of interactions Cyj and C,. Cross-correlation rates and cross-relaxation rates have not been fully utilized in LC. However, there is a recent report41 on this subject using both the 13C chemical shielding anisotropy and C-H dipolar coupling relaxation mechanisms to study a nematic, and this may be a fruitful arena in gaining dynamic information for LC. We summarize below some well known (auto-)relaxation rates for various spin interactions commonly encountered in LC studies. 

Fig. 32. Schematic representation of the flexo-electric effect, (a) The structure of an undeformed nematic liquid crystal with pear- and banana-shaped molecules (b) the same liquid crystal subjected to splay and bend deformations, respectively.

This topic has been the subject of considerable debate over the past decade. In fact, with respect to the three best known structures indicated in Fig. 1, there are almost as many reports indicating that the sequence distributions are blocky as there are claiming that they are random [7-13]. A similar confusion has surrounded possible changes in the microstructure on heating these copolyesters in the nematic melt. In this latter case, some workers have argued that these systems are stable in the melt [7], while others claim that they undergo ordering... 

The molecular theory of Doi [63,166] has been successfully applied to the description of many nonlinear rheological phenomena in PLCs. This theory assumes an un-textured monodomain and describes the molecular scale orientation of rigid rod molecules subject to the combined influence of hydrodynamic and Brownian torques, along with a potential of interaction (a Maier-Saupe potential is used) to account for the tendency for nematic alignment of the molecules. This theory is able to predict shear thinning viscosity, as well as predictions of the Leslie viscosity coefficients used in the LE theory. The original calculations by Doi for this model employed a preaveraging approximation that was later... 

Such order can be described in terms of the preferential alignment of the director, a unit vector that describes the orientation of molecules in a nematic phase. Because the molecules are still subject to random fluctuations, only an average orientation can be described, usually by an ordering matrix S, which can be expressed in terms of any Cartesian coordinate system fixed in the molecule. S is symmetric and traceless and hence has five independent elements, but a suitable choice of the molecular axes may reduce the number. In principle, it is always possible to diagonalize S, and in such a principal axis coordinate system there are only two nonzero elements (as there would be, for example, in a quadrupole coupling tensor). In the absence of symmetry in the molecule, there is no way of specifying the orientation of the principal axes of S, but considerable simplification is obtained for symmetric molecules. If a molecule has a threefold or higher axis of symmetry, its selection as one of the axes of the Cartesian coordinate system leaves only one independent order parameter, with the now familiar form ... 

The observation of optical properties in an applied electric field, which are similar to those of a collection of oriented uniaxial crystallites, suggests that within each domain the molecules are cooperatively oriented. It remains to be determined whether or not the observed domains present a net spontaneous polarization. Previous experiments with nematic p-azoxyani-sole indicated that dielectric peculiarities did accompany the formation of domains which appear when thin samples of this material are subjected to an electric field (4). 

Our tribological experiments with the liquid crystals can be summarized as follows. LCl, which is in the nematic phase at the room temperature was subjected to a traction test. The traction of this sample is almost half of a normal liquid lubricant under the same conditions. Note that the traction did not change with die increasing speed after the initial sharp drop. These results are consistent with a quasi-solid lubricant shearing between the bounding surfaces. It should be mentioned here that a surface active material was put on the surface of the steel ball before the LCl was inserted. It was used to prevent the liquid crystal from slipping on the smooth steel surface. In any case, the traction data were unusual and would put liquid crystals of this type into a special class of lubricants. 

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