WEAK-ANCHORING EFFECTS ON A FREEDERICKSZ TRANSITION IN AN ANNULUS

This paper investigates the effect of weak anchoring on static orienta tion patterns in a sample of nematic liquid crystal confined to a cyli ndrical annular geometry, in the presence of a magnetic field. The par ticular arrangement considered in detail is that in which a magnetic f ield is applied in the azimuthal direction to a sample of liquid cryst al that is initially uniformly aligned parallel to the cylindrical axi s and is weakly anchored at the inner cylinder, but strongly anchored at the outer cylinder. A static solution of the non-linear continuum e quations is presented which suggests a possible experiment for evaluat ing the surface elastic coefficient k(24) In addition, a linear stabil ity analysis based on the dynamic theory yields results for critical p henomena in agreement with those derived from the non-linear solution.