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Updated: Aug 13, 2026

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Nonstandard electroconvection in a bent-core nematic liquid crystal
1Department of Physics, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242, USA.
Abstract:
We characterize three nonstandard electrohydrodynamic instabilities in nematic liquid crystals composed of bent-core molecules. In addition to their shape, another important attribute of this material is that the anisotropy in the electrical conductivity changes sign as the frequency of the applied electric field changes. These instabilities do not appear to fit within the standard model for electroconvection. The first instability creates a pattern with stripes parallel to the initial director orientation, with a wavelength about equal to the separation of the cell plates. The next is the previously reported prewavy instability. The third instability is optically and dynamically identical to the prewavy instability, but is distinguished by different threshold behavior.
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