Rotation of a liquid crystal by the Casimir torque

Abstract

We present a calculation of the Casimir torque acting on a liquid crystal near a birefringent crystal. In this system, a liquid crystal bulk is uniformly aligned at one surface and is twisted at the other surface by a birefringent crystal, e.g. barium titanate. The liquid crystal is separated from the solid crystal by an isotropic, transparent material such as SiO${}_2$. By varying the thickness of the deposited layer, we can observe the effect of retardation on the torque (which differentiates it from the close-range van der Waals torque). We find that a barium titanate slab would cause 5CB (4-cyano-4${}^{\prime }$-pentylbiphenyl) liquid crystal to rotate by 10${}^{\circ }$ through its bulk when separated by 35 nm of SiO${}_2$. The optical technique for measuring this twist is also outlined.

arXiv comment5 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (7)

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• On the torque on birefringent plates induced by quantum fluctuations
• Casimir torque
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• Qualitative chirality effects on the Casimir-Lifshitz torque with liquid crystals
• Quantization of magnetoelectric fields
• Azimuthally unidirectional transport of energy in magnetoelectric fields. Topological Lenz effect
• Interplay between finite thickness and chirality effects on the Casimir-Lifshitz torque with nematic cholesteric liquid crystals
• Induced Quantized Spin Current in Vacuum
• Competition-Induced Sign Reversal of Casimir-Lifshitz Torque: An Investigation on Topological Node-Line Semimetal