Scaling of the elastic contribution to the surface free energy of a nematic on a sawtoothed substrate
arXiv:1006.4448 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.82.011707
Abstract
We characterize the elastic contribution to the surface free energy of a nematic in presence of a sawtooth substrate. Our findings are based on numerical minimization of the Landau-de Gennes model and analytical calculations on the Frank-Oseen theory. The nucleation of disclination lines (characterized by non-half-integer winding numbers) in the wedges and apexes of the substrate induces a leading order proportional to qlnq to the elastic contribution to the surface free energy density, q being the wavenumber associated with the substrate periodicity.
7 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review E
References in corpus (1)
Cited by in corpus (7)
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