title: Microscopic observations and simulations of Bloch walls in nematic thin films.
abstract: We study Bloch wall defects formed by quenching nematic thin films from planar anchoring to homeotropic anchoring through a temperature-driven anchoring transition. The director profiles of the walls are directly visualized using fluorescence confocal polarizing microscopy, and shown to agree well with the simulation based on the Frank elasticity theory. A pure twist wall exists if the ratio of sample thickness to surface extrapolation length p is smaller than or close to 1; while a diffuse Bloch wall is obtained if p is much greater than 1.
authors.affiliation: School of Polymer, Textile and Fiber Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Jung O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Gino
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: De Luca
authors.forename: Alejandro D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Rey
authors.forename: Mohan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Srinivasarao