主催: 日本液晶学会
会議名: 2000年 日本液晶学会討論会
開催地: くにびきメッセ
開催日: 2000/10/25 - 2000/10/27
p. 13-14
Rotational entropy, or the entropy loss due to molecular alignment, has never been considered to contribute to Frank elasticity in previous molecular theories of nematic liquid crystals. Using a field-theoretical technique developed in polymer physics. we show that rotational entropy does yield Frank elasticity, which is attributed to the inherent non-local nature of orientational order due to the finite size of the molecules. We also give an exact cxpression of rotational entropy contribution to Frank elasticity for rod-like liquid crystals in terms of the orientational tensor order parameter.