Published in

IOP Publishing, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 16(8), p. 2741-2754

DOI: 10.1088/0953-8984/8/16/003

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Director distortion in a nematic wetting layer

Journal article published in 1996 by F. N. Braun, T. J. Sluckin ORCID, E. Velasco
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

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Abstract

Nematic liquid-crystal wetting at a solid interface presents particularly interesting features when the nematic director orientation at the solid interface is antagonistic to that favoured by the emerging nematic - isotropic interface. We have used the Landau - de Gennes theory of an inhomogeneous liquid crystal to make a quantitative study of this phenomenon, for the case when the solid surface favours homeotropic anchoring but the nematic - isotropic surface favours planar anchoring. By generalizing the theory of Sheng to allow spatial variation of the director, we find a richer surface phase diagram exhibiting a prewetting line or boundary transition shifted from that discussed by Sheng, as well as a transition between two nematic wetting phases, at which the wetting layer director profile changes from a homeotropic to a distorted texture.