Effects of weak anchoring on the azimuthal anchoring energy of a nematic liquid crystal at a grooved interface

Abstract

Fukuda et al. re-examined Berreman's model on the azimuthal anchoring energy at a grooved interface with infinite polar anchoring. We investigate the effects of finite polar anchoring on the azimuthal anchoring energy in the frame of Fukuda et al.’s theory and propose a more general expression for the azimuthal anchoring energy. We show that finite polar anchoring can provide an important contribution to the azimuthal anchoring energy and that the surface-like elastic term still leads to a non-zero contribution to the Rapini–Papoular anchoring energy.

Keywords:

• nematic
• azimuthal anchoring energy
• grooved interface
• weak anchoring

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant nos. 60736042, 60878047 and 10704022, the Hebei Province Natural Science Foundation of China under grant no. A2010000004 and the Key Subject Construction Project of Hebei Province University.