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Updated: Aug 10, 2026

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Periodic saddle-splay Freedericksz transition in nematic liquid crystals
1Laboratory of Physics of Complex Systems, Faculty of Education, University of Maribor, Koroska 160, 2000, Maribor, Slovenia.
Abstract:
By use of a local stability criterion recently introduced, we predict the existence of a periodic saddle-splay Freedericksz (PSSF) transition that adds to the existing class of classical Freedericksz transitions driven in a nematic cell by an external field. Occurrence of the PSSF transition requires a saddle-splay elastic constant with a large enough magnitude and different anchoring strengths at the plates confining the nematic cell. Otherwise, either the PSSF transition does not occur at all, or it requires a field higher than that associated with the classical aperiodic splay Freedericksz (ASF) transition, in which case it is not observable. Here, we determine the threshold field for which the PSSF precedes the ASF transition, as well as the structure of the destabilizing mode.
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