Anatoli Murauski

5.3: Determination of the Polar Anchoring Energy by Electrical Measurement

We propose a simple method for determination of polar anchoring coefficient by electrical measurements. The basic idea of this method is a two-channel scheme for capacitance measurements. The first channel uses one cell with planar alignment LC, the second channel uses the cell with vertical alignment (VA). Such method gives a possibility to investigate anchoring properties of planar and vertical alignment materials. Measurements of two cells at one time give possibility to compensate all volume effects in LC cell and investigate only surface effects. The method can be used for the cells, which do not have uniform planar or VA orientation. We applied this method to investigate the polar anchoring properties of photoaligning material before and after illumination.