Universal Determination of Surface Anchoring Strength by Magnetic-Field-Induced Orientational Torque Measurements II

Abstract

Mechanical torque measurement in conjunction with a strong magnetic field avoids some shortcomings of high-electric-technique associated with the use of electric field and retardation. This technique makes the high-field technique universally applicable to both polar and azimuthal anchoring without loss of precision even for the strong anchoring cases. Now, we introduce universal torque measurement system designed for determination of the surface anchoring strength at a liquid crystal-substrate.