11 research outputs found
Pattern forming instability induced by light in pure and dye-doped nematic liquid crystals
We study theoretically the instabilities induced by a linearly polarized
ordinary light wave incident at a small oblique angle on a thin layer of
homeotropically oriented nematic liquid crystal with special emphasis on the
dye-doped case. The spatially periodic Hopf bifurcation that occurs as the
secondary instability after the stationary Freedericksz transition is analyzed.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, LaTeX, accepted to Phys. Rev.
Critical dynamics of lateral and transversal phase separations in bilayer biomembranes and surfactants
Landau theory for biaxial nematic liquid crystals with two order parameter tensors
We present a phenomenological theory for the homogeneous phases of nematic liquid crystals constituted by biaxial molecules. We propose a general polynomial potential in two macroscopic order parameter tensors that reproduces the mean-field phase diagram confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations [De Matteis et al. in Phys Rev E 72:041706 (2005)] and recently recognized to be universal [Bisi et al. in Phys Rev E 73:051709 (2006)] for dispersion force molecular pair-potentials enjoying the D 2h symmetry. The requirement that the phenomenological theory comply uniquely with this phase diagram reduces considerably the admissible phenomenological coefficients, both in their number and in the ranges where they can vary