Effects of weak anchoring on the equivalent anchoring energy in a nematic cell with large amplitude of the grooves

Nanostructured corrugated surfaces in liquid crystal cells have a strong influence on the alignment of liquid crystal molecules. An equivalent energy can be attributed to the system due to deformations resulting from the equilibrium between bulk elastic forces and surface forces due to the anchoring of the molecules to the layer. First, we derive the equilibrium equations on the surface and in the bulk for a cell with a corrugated surface with large amplitude A of the grooves and weak anchoring. We also analyze numerically the solution and show that the equivalent anchoring energy presents a nontrivial dependence on A and falls to zero for infinite amplitude grooves. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3005982]