Lateral and normal forces between patterned substrates induced by nematic fluctuations
arXiv:cond-mat/0512217 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.73.051708
Abstract
We consider a nematic liquid crystal confined by two parallel flat substrates whose anchoring conditions vary periodically in one lateral direction. Within the Gaussian approximation, we study the effective forces between the patterned substrates induced by the thermal fluctuations of the nematic director. The shear force oscillates as function of the lateral shift between the patterns on the lower and the upper substrates. We compare the strength of this fluctuation-induced lateral force with the lateral van der Waals force arising from chemically structured adsorbed monolayers. The fluctuation-induced force in normal direction is either repulsive or attractive, depending on the model parameters.
9 pages, 9 figures
References in corpus (4)
Cited by in corpus (11)
- The Casimir effect: from quantum to critical fluctuations
- Interplay of critical Casimir and dispersion forces
- Critical Casimir Effect: Exact Results
- Critical Casimir forces and adsorption profiles in the presence of a chemically structured substrate
- Critical adsorption and critical Casimir forces for geometrically structured confinements
- Critical Casimir forces between homogeneous and chemically striped surfaces
- Critical Casimir force in the presence of random local adsorption preference
- Fluctuation-induced Interactions in Micro- and Nano-systems: Survey of Some Basic Results
- Line contribution to the critical Casimir force between a homogeneous and a chemically stepped surface
- Pseudo-Casimir interactions and surface anchoring duality in bookshelf geometry of smectic-A liquid crystals
- Fluctuation-induced interactions in nematics with disordered anchoring energy