Kiselev A. Mie scattering and orientational structures in liquid crystal systems induced by surface elasticity and conformational transformations

The thesis presents the theoretical studies of optical characteristics and orientational properties of liquid crystal (LC) systems. The T-matrix theory of light scattering by optically anisotropic scatterers is developed and is used to study optical anisotropy effects in light scattering from uniformly and radialy anisotropic LC particles. The suggested general approach to the stability analysis of orientational structures is employed to study the stability of the structures depending on magnetic fields, anchoring energy and surface elasticity, bistability effects and the formation of periodically modulated structures induced by surface elasticity. For planar cholesteric cells, dependence of the twist wavenumber on the free twisting number is studied. The general approach to the kinetics of the photoinduced optical anisotropy (POA) in LC polymers is developed. Using this approach the phenomenological model of POA is formulated. The model is used to interpret the effect of changing the kinetics regime with the wavelength of the pumping light. Using the generalized second Legendre transformation technique in the superfield representation the self-consistent theory of non-equilibrium LC systems with quenched disorder is elaborated.