Premium
Temperature Dependence of the Elastic Constants for Biaxial Nematic Liquid Crystals
Author(s) -
Monselesan D.,
Trebin H.R.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
physica status solidi (b)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1521-3951
pISSN - 0370-1972
DOI - 10.1002/pssb.2221550203
Subject(s) - liquid crystal , condensed matter physics , order (exchange) , materials science , constant (computer programming) , biaxial nematic , thermodynamics , energy (signal processing) , energy density , physics , quantum mechanics , theoretical physics , programming language , finance , economics , computer science
The elastic constants K ij of the Frank‐Oseen energy density for uniaxial nematic liquid crystals depend on the Maier‐Saupe order parameter S and hence on temperature. Longa et al. recently used an extended Landau‐Ginzburg‐de Gennes theory to expand the functions K ij (S) up to fourth order in S . Here, a similar procedure is applied for the elastic energy density of biaxial nematic liquid crystals. The three chiral and 15 achiral constants are expressed as fourth‐order polynomials in the order parameter S and the degree of biaxiality T . Via the temperature dependence of the quantities S and T also the temperature dependence of the elastic constants is fixed.