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Updated: Mar 6, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Lifting degeneracy in nematic liquid crystal viscosities with a single optical measurement
T P Bennett1, M B Proctor2, M Kaczmarek2
1Mathematical Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
Abstract:
The viscosity of complex, anisotropic fluids, such as liquid crystals or their colloidal suspensions, is characterized by a number of coefficients. Methods to measure them are, typically, sensitive only to their particular combinations, hence unable to determine them individually. Using an Ericksen-Leslie model and propagation of light through aligned layers of such materials, we show theoretically and verify experimentally how this degeneracy can be lifted by exploiting both the amplitude and frequency of the voltage applied to the cell as control parameters.
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