title: Relaxation of a field-unwound cholesteric liquid crystal.
abstract: We have numerically investigated the homogeneous-planar and homeotropic-planar transitions, respectively, in a planar-aligned cholesteric liquid crystal by using our multidimensional software based on the finite element method. When the unwinding field is turned off abruptly, the relaxation process of a field-unwound cholesteric liquid crystal is accompanied by an elastic-induced Helfrich deformation without introduction of defects, which will continuously convert into a stable planar texture with natural pitch and domain wall.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Electro-Optical Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan, Republic of China.
authors.forename: I-An
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.forename: Yin-Chieh
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.forename: Shu-Hsia
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Jin-Jei
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Wu