2000/04/07 by G. Barbero, A. K. Zvezdin, А. К. Звездин
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Photonic Crystals and Applications #Plant Reproductive Biology #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/s0375-9601(00)00325-x
12 pages, 2 figures, RevTex
arxiv created 2000/04/07 · openalex publication_date 2000/06/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In the mean field approximation, we evaluate the temperature dependence of the anchoring energy strength of a nematic liquid crystal in contact with a solid substrate due to thermal fluctuations. Our study is limited to the weak anchoring case, where the microscopic surface energy is small with respect to the mean field energy due to the nematic phase. We assume furthermore that the physical properties of the substrate can be considered temperature independent in the range of the nematic phase. According to the thermodynamical perturbative approach, the macroscopic surface energy is deduced by averaging the microscopic one, with a density matrix containing only the nematic mean field. We show that the thermal renormalization of the anchoring energy coefficients is proportional to the generalized nematic order parameters.