Analysis of deformations of flexoelectric homeotropic liquid crystal layers with various anchoring strengths

AbstractDeformations of homeotropic layers of nematic liquid crystal possessing flexoelectric properties and subjected to external dc voltage were studied numerically. The influence of the anchoring strengthWwas investigated. The calculations were performed for two types of layers, one with positive dielectric anisotropy and positive sum of flexoelectric coefficients and the other with opposite signs of these parameters. Strongly blocking electrodes were assumed. The threshold voltages for deformations were computed for several anchoring strength values and for low, moderate, and high ion contents. The director distributions were also determined. They were influenced by joined effects of anchoring strength and space charge of ions. For increasing ion contents and increasing anchoring strength, remarkable change of deformation character was noticed. In the case of negative dielectric and flexoelectric parameters, the threshold was nearly proportional to W for low anchoring strength and saturated at some high value of W. In the case of positive dielectric and flexoelectric parameters, the threshold voltage increased strongly with W. In the range of enhanced ion concentrations, the deformation arose in two voltage ranges. The increasing anchoring strength damped the deformations in the whole layer, however, this effect was minor at high ion content.