直流電場下のネマチック液晶滴における対流駆動と構造変形

抄録

The deformation of director field in a nematic liquid crystalline droplet under an electric field was analyzed. Under a direct-current (DC) electric field, we observed that the Maltese cross pattern in the droplet deformed, moving to the positive electrode side. Flow field measurements revealed that the DC field generated a convective flow, which resulted in the movement of the pattern. We analyzed the mechanism of the director deformation based on Onsager’s variational principle; consequently, it was verified that the model, which assumes that the deformation is induced by the flow and the dielectric anisotropy, well describes the experimental results.