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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Phase winding in chiral liquid crystalline monolayers due to Lehmann effects
Daniel Svensek1, Harald Pleiner, Helmut R Brand
1Theoretische Physik III, Universität Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany. daniel.svensek@uni-bayreuth.de
Abstract:
We model recent experimental results by Tabe and Yokoyama on chiral liquid crystalline monolayers driven by the transmembrane transfer of water molecules. We point out that the target patterns found for the orientation of the in-plane preferred direction can be described as phase winding due to Lehmann effects, which are specific to macroscopically chiral systems. The model presented has only one variable and is driven and dissipative. Including the effects of noise leads to an accurate representation of the patterns observed experimentally. Future experimental tests of the model are suggested.
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