Host: The Japanese Liquid Crystal Society
Name : Japanese Liquid Crystal Conference 2012
Location : [in Japanese]
Date : September 05, 2012 - September 07, 2012
We investigate how the variation of the Frank elastic constants affects the stability of cholesteric blue phases (BPs). Our theoretical argument is based on a classical theory of Meiboom et al. that considered the energetic contribution of disclination lines, and the surface-like elasticity characterized by K_<24>. We extended the original theory of Meiboom et al. that assumed one-constant elasticity to the case of unequal elastic constants. We show that larger K_<11> and K_<22> and smaller K_<33> is beneficial to the stability of BPs. In particular, drastically wider temperature range of stable BPs for small K_<33> is in agreement with recent experiments.
