Physical Mechanism for Bistable Polar Switching of a Nematic Liquid Crystal in a Boundary Layer Configuration

Abstract

We describe a physical mechanism for bistable polar switching, of a nematic liquid crystal (LC) in a boundary layer (BL) configuration. The transition from a symmetrical horizontal state to one of two asymmetrical states originates from the flexoelectric coupling with an external electric field. It is found that the renormalization of the anchoring energy accounts for the appearance of the bistable polar switching in the BL configuration. Numerical simulations are carried out to understand how the flexoelectricity and the anchoring strength affect the nature of the polar switching in the BL configuration of a nematic LC cell. The bistability associated with ail inversion wall disappears in a certain range of the flexoelectric coefficient.