Eur. Phys. J. E (2019) 42: 69
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2019-11832-9

Regular Article

Electro-osmosis and flexo-electricity in the dowser texture

¹ Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, Université Paris-Sud, Bât. 510, 91405, Orsay, France
² CENIMAT, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829 - 516, Caparica, Portugal

^* e-mail: pawel.pieranski@u-psud.fr

Received: 24 March 2019
Accepted: 30 April 2019
Published online: 3 June 2019

Abstract

Due to its low symmetry, the long-lived pseudo-planar texture, dubbed “the dowser texture”, has a flexo-electric spontaneous polarisation . Being degenerated, the dowser texture is easily aligned by the electric torque acting on . The dowser texture can also be aligned by Poiseuille flows driven by electro-osmosis. The hydrodynamic torques due to the electro-osmotic flows are linear in like the electrical one. It is shown that in 5CB the electro-osmotic flows can alter measurements of the flexo-electric polarisation.