Abstract
This chapter is a self-contained but not exhaustive account of continuum modelling approaches for nematic liquid crystals. Nematic liquid crystals are partially ordered liquids or anisotropic liquids with long-range orientational order. This chapter contains an overview of the celebrated Landau-de Gennes, Ericksen and Oseen-Frank theories for nematic liquid crystals, with emphasis on the mathematical modelling of static equilibrium phenomena. The chapter has a section devoted to a case study of a multistable nematic device. The case study focuses on two different modelling approaches to this device—the simple Oseen-Frank framework and the more elaborate Landau-de Gennes approach. The case study describes the corresponding mathematical frameworks, the methodology and the model predictions with comparisons to numerical simulations and experimental results. In particular, the case study elucidates how multistability in nematic devices can be controlled and manipulated by temperature, material properties and boundary effects. The Conclusions section summarizes the chapter content with future perspectives.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Variational Methods in Molecular Modeling |
| Editors | Jianzhong Wu |
| Place of Publication | Singapore |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Pages | 223-254 |
| Number of pages | 32 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9789811025006 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 18 Dec 2016 |
Keywords
- liquid crystal
- nematic liquid crystal
- cholesteric liquid crystal
- molecular alignment
- elastic energy density
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Cite this
Majumdar, A., & Lewis, A. H. (2016). A Theoretician's Approach to Nematic Liquid Crystals and their Applications. In J. Wu (Ed.), Variational Methods in Molecular Modeling (pp. 223-254). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2502-0_8