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CONVECTIVE PATTERNS IN LIQUID CRYSTALS
Nandor Eber
,Agnes Buka
,Werner Pesch
Research Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, Budapest, Hungary
Institute of Physics, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
A systematic overview of various electric-field induced pattern forming instabilities
in nematic liquid crystals is given. Particular emphasis is laid on the characterization
of the threshold voltage and the critical wavenumber of the resulting
patterns. The standard hydrodynamic description of nematics predicts the occurrence
of striped patterns (rolls) in five different wavenumber ranges, which
depend on the anisotropies of the dielectric permittivity and of the electrical conductivity
as well as on the initial director orientation (planar or homeotropic).
Experiments have revealed two additional pattern types which are not captured
by the standard model of electroconvection and which still need a theoretical
explanation.
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