ORIENTATIONAL ORDER-PARAMETER AT THE INTERFACE AND SURFACE-ENERGY OF ANISOTROPIC LIQUID

A simple model that makes it possible to describe the pattern of tempe rature dependence on the surface tension of anisotropic liquids (liqui d crystals) exhibiting nematic orientational order was proposed. Adequ ate correlation between theoretical calculations and experimental data was obtained for substances exhibiting only nematic liquid-crystallin e phase. The best agreement with experiment is observed near the tempe rature T-c of phase transition to isotropic phase, i.e. in the region where the Landau-De Gennes approximation for the free energy is valid.