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Anomalous Alignment and Domains in a Nematic Liquid Crystal

1971; American Institute of Physics; Volume: 55; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1063/1.1676317

1520-9032

J. H. Parker, E. F. Carr,

Plant Reproductive Biology

The relationship between anomalous alignment and domain formation is examined for the room temperature nematic liquid crystal, p-methoxybenzilidene p-n-butylaniline (MBBA). An increase in order with the long molecular axes preferring a direction perpendicular to an externally applied low-frequency electric field is observed for potential differences below the threshold voltage for anomalous alignment. Employing measurements of the dielectric loss at a microwave frequency of 24.4 GHz, the threshold voltage for anomalous alignment is examined as a function of the frequency of an externally applied electric field. This is then contrasted with the frequency dependence of the threshold voltage for domain formation as determined from visual observation. Comparing optical and dielectric data we show that the threshold is the same in each case. At very high electric field strengths, behavior indicating a tendency towards random molecular alignment is observed.