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Published on: May 15, 2017
Fluctuation modes in confined nematic liquid crystals in a regime of critical wetting
1Institute for Solid State Physics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Tzarigradsko chaussee-72, 1784 Sofia, Bulgaria.
Abstract:
Analytic solutions are obtained for the energies of normal fluctuation modes in confined nematic liquid crystals in a regime of critical wetting. The expressions are valid close enough to the nematic-isotropic phase-transition temperature and demonstrate that the spectra of local director modes give direct information about the nature of presurface forces and the criticality by itself. The possible changes in the spectra imposed by interface-position fluctuations and order-electricity effects are also discussed.
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