Abstract:

Periodic structures are common in liquid-crystal films.  This is true
for systems involving chiral materials, which have intrinsic periodic
tendencies, as well as for achiral systems (such as nematics), which
do not.  In technologies, such periodic patterns can be desirable (in
diffractive optics applications, for example) or not.  We report on a
numerical investigation of a periodic "stripe phase" instability that
has been observed experimentally in a nematic liquid crystal in a
magnetic field in a certain parameter range.