Abstract
A unique stripe pattern or banded texture appears in a liquid crystalline solution of rod-like polymer PBLG, sandwiched between two parallel glass plates, when the direction of an in-plane electric field already applied along say-x axis is suddenly reversed to +x direction, the orientation of director in the stripe domain being perpendicular to +x direction. We here present a theoretical analysis of the initial stage of the pattern formation, and show that the modulated structure of the electric polarization is a natural consequence of the tendency for the polarization having a large relaxation time to reduce the electrostatic energy in the course of its rotation towards the final direction of +x axis. It is shown in particular that wave length of the modulation (stripe structure) is determined by the competition between the electrostatic self-energy of the component of the polarization perpendicular to the applied electric field and the energy of the curvature elasticity. The growth equation for the modulation amplitude is also derived.
