INFLUENCE OF THE SADDLE-SPLAY ENERGY ON THE STRUCTURE OF CHOLESTERIC LIQUID-CRYSTALS CONFINED TO A CAPILLARY

We calculate the director field of a cholesteric liquid crystal confined to a capillary. It is assumed to be rotationally symmetric, defect free, and homogeneous along the capillary axis. The boundary coupling is either rigid or planar-free. We found that the saddle-splay energy induces a preferred direction for the director at the capillary wall. Thus this setup is suitable for high precision measurements of K-24 Since our result holds for capillaries of arbitrary radius, it is a counterexample to the standard argument that K-24 can be neglected for geometries which are defect free and large enough.