Abstract
A new method has been established for the measurement of the sum of the flexoelectric coefficients e1+e3 in liquid crystals by exploiting the properties of highly ionic materials in order to screen out the internal bias due to the different surface alignment polarities in a Hybrid Aligned Nematic (HAN) liquid crystal device. It has been shown that responses to pulses are independent of the external offset of a signal applied to a HAN device filled with a highly ionic material. Driving the device with step changes in the offset leads to either a transient increase or transient decrease in the response, depending on the polarity of the offset, while the equilibrium response remains the same. The time constant of the transient effect is consistent with the relaxation time of the ions present in the material. Assuming these ions screen out the internal bias completely, the remaining response can be used as a measure of the flexoelectric effect. Based on this approach, a value of (10 ± 2) pC m−1 was found for the modulus of the flexoelectric sum in the standard commercial eutectic E70 nematic liquid crystal mixture.
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