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Updated: Jan 27, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Horizontal transportation of a Maltese cross pattern in nematic liquid crystalline droplets under a temperature
1Department of Physical Sciences, Ritsumeikan University, 1-1-1 Noji-Higashi, Kusatsu, Shiga 525-0058, Japan.
Abstract:
Flow and director fields strongly couple with each other in liquid crystalline systems, and herein we discuss the coupling effect in cylindrical and spherical-cap droplets formed by nematic liquid crystal. Applying a temperature gradient to droplets dispersed in a liquid solvent, we observed a crosslike texture in the droplets moved toward the high-temperature side, indicating that the director field was deformed from equilibrium. Additionally, measurement of the flow field revealed that a convective flow was induced in the droplets under temperature gradient. These results suggested that the director deformation in the droplet was induced by convection. By designing a simplified model based on this, we theoretically analyzed the above phenomenon based on Onsager's variational principle. The results show that the phenomenon was well described by a balance of surface energy gradient with viscous and elastic forces.
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