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Nematic liquid crystal dynamics under applied electric fields
In this paper we investigate the dynamics of liquid crystal textures in a
two-dimensional nematic under applied electric fields, using numerical
simulations performed using a publicly available LIquid CRystal Algorithm
(LICRA) developed by the authors. We consider both positive and negative
dielectric anisotropies and two different possibilities for the orientation of
the electric field (parallel and perpendicular to the two-dimensional lattice).
We determine the effect of an applied electric field pulse on the evolution of
the characteristic length scale and other properties of the liquid crystal
texture network. In particular, we show that different types of defects are
produced after the electric field is switched on, depending on the orientation
of the electric field and the sign of the dielectric anisotropy.Comment: 7 pages, 12 figure
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