Variation of nematic liquid crystal on a silver surface

The variation of liquid crystal (LC) molecules on an unaligned surface is complicated and deserves study for the application of dye adsorption. The attenuated total reflection (ATR) technique is a sensitive way to observe the variation of LC director near the silver surface, which can eliminate the guided mode and enhance the sensitivity in the variation of LC directors. The behaviours of LC directors near the silver films are treated as the tilt mode with the aid of the homogeneous alignment layer. The polar anchoring energy coefficient is not constant and is dependent on the variation of LC directors in the azimuthal direction.