Propagation of director and flow patterns of chiral liquid crystal under alternating-current electric field

Abstract

The electroconvection of liquid crystals is a typical example of a dissipative structure generated by complicated interactions between convective flow, structural deformation, and the migration of charge carriers. In this study, we found that the periodic fingerprint texture in cholesteric liquid crystalline droplets propagates like a wave, under an alternating-current electric field. In this situation, flow field measurement revealed the existence of the periodic convection, travelling together with the director field. This result indicated that the wave propagation phenomenon is driven by the electroconvection.