Dk. Shenoy et al., Coarsening of reverse tilt domains in liquid-crystal cells with heterogeneous alignment layers, PHYS REV L, 82(8), 1999, pp. 1716-1719
When an electric field above the Freedericksz threshold is applied to a nem
atic liquid crystal in a cell with heterogeneous alignment layers, the syst
em exhibits reverse tilt domains. Over a time scale of seconds to minutes,
the disordered domain pattern coarsens into a uniform texture. Analysis of
the coarsening dynamics shows that the characteristic length scale L grows
with time t as L similar to (log t)(4). This scaling is consistent with pre
dictions of the random-bond Ising model, in which randomness in the Ising b
ond strength represents heterogeneity in the alignment layers.