Nematic phase

The nematic phase of a liquid crystal has orientational order, but no positional order ^[1].

Dielectric tensor

In the uniaxial nematic phase, defining the z-axis to be parallel to the nematic axis, one has

\epsilon _{\alpha \beta }={\begin{pmatrix}\epsilon _{\bot }&0&0\\0&\epsilon _{\bot }&0\\0&0&\epsilon _{\|}\end{pmatrix}}

The anisotropy is defined as

Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \Delta \epsilon = \epsilon_\| - \epsilon_\bot } .

The response of a nematic liquid crystal to an external electric field depends on both the sign and the magnitude of Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \Delta \epsilon} .

Discotic nematic phase

Biaxial nematic phase

References

↑ Pierre-Gilles De Gennes and J. Prost "Physics of Liquid Crystals" (1995)

[1] Pierre-Gilles De Gennes and J. Prost "Physics of Liquid Crystals" (1995)

[1]

Nematic phase

Contents

Dielectric tensor

Discotic nematic phase

Biaxial nematic phase

References

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Nematic phase

Dielectric tensor

Discotic nematic phase

Biaxial nematic phase

References

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