Density-Functional Theory of Liquid Crystal Surfaces

Abstract

We develop a density-functional theory based on weighted density formalism to describe the surfaces of liquid crystals. The expression for the surface free energy is written in terms of order parameters characterizing the nature and amount of ordering in the interface and the structural parameters which involve the spherical harmonic coefficients of the direct pair correlation function of an effective isotropic fluid the density of which is determined using a criterion of the weighted density-functional formalism. We report preliminory results of our calculations for nematic/vapour and nematic/isotropic liquid interfaces.