We use homogenization theory to develop a multiscale model of colloidal dispersion of particles in nematic liquid crystals under weak-anchoring conditions. We validate the model by comparing it with simulations by using the Landau-de Gennes free energy and show that the agreement is excellent. We then use the multiscale model to study the effect that particle anisotropy has on the liquid crystal: spherically symmetric particles always reduce the effective elastic constant. Asymmetric particles introduce an effective alignment field that can increase the Fredericks threshold and decrease the switch-off time.
We track the non-uniformity of a wide area liquid crystal device using multiple cross-polarized intensity measurements. They give us not only accurate estimates of the core physical liquid crystal parameters, such as elastic constants, but also spatial maps of the device properties, including the liquid crystal thickness and pretilt angle. A bootstrapping statistical analysis, coupled with the multiple measurements, gives us reliable error bars on all the measured parameters.
The viscosity of complex, anisotropic fluids, such as liquid crystals or their colloidal suspensions, is characterized by a number of coefficients. Methods to measure them are, typically, sensitive only to their particular combinations, hence unable to determine them individually. Using an Ericksen-Leslie model and propagation of light through aligned layers of such materials, we show theoretically and verify experimentally how this degeneracy can be lifted by exploiting both the amplitude and frequency of the voltage applied to the cell as control parameters.
The predictions of several homogeneous nucleation theories are compared with experimental results for water for a range of temperatures and vapor supersaturations, S. The theoretical models considered are: classical theory (including the 1/S correction factor), the Gibbs p-form, mean-field kinetic nucleation theory (MKNT), the extended modified liquid drop model-dynamical nucleation theory, and two forms of density functional theory, one without and one with a contribution due to association. The theoretical expressions for the logarithm of the nucleation rate are expanded in a series in powers of the logarithm of S. The residual dependence (once the classical dependence has been factored out) of the experimental results shows a stronger decrease with increasing temperature than all the theories except MKNT. The residual S-dependence of the experimental results decreases with increasing supersaturation whereas all the theories except the Gibbs p-form predict an increase. The first correction term to classical theory involves both the liquid compressibility and curvature correction to the surface tension (Tolman length) so the experimental results suggest that the Tolman length is zero (as assumed in the Gibbs p-form) or positive whereas the other theories predict a negative Tolman length. The effect of including a term proportional to ln(lnS) in the series expansion is also discussed.
In this work the mechanisms leading to the enhancement of optical nonlinearity of nematic liquid crystalline material through localized heating by doping the liquid crystals (LCs) with gold nanoparticles (GNPs) is investigated. We present some experimental and theoretical results on the effect of voltage and nanoparticle concentration on the nonlinear response of the GNP-LC suspensions. The optical nonlinearity of these systems is characterized by diffraction measurements and the second order nonlinear refractive index, n 2 is used to compare systems with different configurations and operating conditions. A theoretical model based on heat diffusion that takes into account the intensity and finite size of the incident beam, the nanoparticle concentration dependent absorbance of the GNP doped LC systems and the presence of bounding substrates is developed and validated. We use the model to discuss possibilities of enhancing further the optical nonlinearity.
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