title: Scaling of the elastic contribution to the surface free energy of a nematic liquid crystal on a sawtoothed substrate.
abstract: We characterize the elastic contribution to the surface free energy of a nematic liquid crystal in the presence of a sawtooth substrate. Our findings are based on numerical minimization of the Landau-de Gennes model and analytical calculations on the Frank-Oseen theory. The nucleation of disclination lines (characterized by non-half-integer winding numbers) in the wedges and apexes of the substrate induces a leading order proportional to q ln q to the elastic contribution to the surface free-energy density, with q being the wave number associated with the substrate periodicity.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física Atómica, Molecular y Nuclear, Area de Física Teórica, Universidad de Sevilla, Apartado de Correos 1065, 41080 Sevilla, Spain.
authors.forename: Jose Manuel
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Romero-Enrique
authors.forename: Chi-Tuong
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Pham
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Patrício