Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 3, 2026

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Nonmonotonic behavior of the nematic tilt angle in a temperature-induced surface transition
Giovanni Barbero1, Ingolf Dahl, Lachezar Komitov
1Liquid Crystal Physics, Department of Physics, University of Gothenburg, SE-412 96, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Abstract:
We report on a nonmonotonic temperature behavior of the pretilt in cells containing polymers as alignment layers. The latter are very promising since they enable control of the anchoring of the liquid crystal. We show that such a behavior cannot be interpreted by the standard Landau or mean-field theory. We propose a generalization of the mean-field model, including the temperature dependence of the anchoring due to the polymer layer that enables a description of the nonlinear behavior. The agreement between the predictions of the model and the experimental data is good.
Related Concept Videos
¹H NMR of Conformationally Flexible Molecules: Variable-Temperature NMR
Oriented Surfaces
Unsymmetric Bending - Angle of Neutral Axis
When a bending moment is applied at an angle θ concerning the vertical axis of a symmetrical member, it can be resolved into components along the member's principal centroidal axes. The...
Atomic Nuclei: Nuclear Relaxation Processes
Thermal Sigmatropic Reactions: Overview
Sigmatropic shifts are classified based on an order term [i, j ], where i and j indicate the number of atoms across which each end of the σ bond migrates. Below are examples of a [3,3] sigmatropic shift in 1,5-hexadiene, referred to as...
Contact Angle
The adhesive force is the molecular force between molecules of different materials, that is, between the molecules of the solid and the liquid. The cohesive force...

