Abstract
A novel method to evaluated a dynamic anchoring effect of LC at the (polymer/liquid crystal:LC) interface based on nonlinear dielectric analysis has been proposed. This method is appliable to an opaque material because of the only application of an electric field as a probe. A polymer/LC/polymer parallel layer cell was composed of polyimide and 4-cyano-4'-pentylbiphenyl. The nonlinearity of the responding wave of electric charge was measured when an amplitude modulated electric field was applied to the cell. The magnitude of the nonlinearity corresponds to the degree of realignment of LC directors. The realignment behavior of LC directors anchored to the palymer surface could be selectively evaluated by using an amplitude modulated electric field. The magnitude of the nonlinearity was low in a high frequency region of the modulated wave. This indicates that the realignment of LC directors can not follow the amplitude modulation of an electric field with high frequency. It was confirmed from the frequency dependance of the nonlinearity that the LC at the (polymer/LC) interface could follow an electric field stimulation with higher frequency than the bulk LC.