Modeling of Weak Anisotropic Anchoring of Nematic Liquid Crystals in the Landau–de Gennes Theory

Abstract

The anisotropic anchoring effect of a treated solid surface on a nematic liquid crystal is described in the Landau-de Gennes theory using a power expansion on the tensor-order parameter and two mutually orthogonal unit vectors. The expression has three degrees of freedom, allowing for independent assignment of polar and azimuthal anchoring strengths and a preferred value of the surface-order parameter. It is shown that in the limit for a uniaxial constant-order parameter, the expression simplifies to the anisotropic generalization of the Rapini-Papoular anchoring energy density proposed by Zhao et al. Experimentally measurable values with a physical meaning in the Oseen-Frank theory can be scaled and assigned to the scalar coefficients of the tensor-order- parameter expansion. Results of numerical experiments comparing the anchoring according to the study of Zhao et al. in the Oseen-Frank theory and the power expansion in the Landau-de Gennes theory are presented and shown to agree well.