Optofluidic effects in confined nematic liquid crystals

Optofluidic effects in nematic liquid crystals are complex and versatile due to the inherent coupling between the material flow and the long-range orientational order of the anisotropic fluids. This coupling offers sensitive driving mechanism for controlling the liquid crystal dynamics and topological defects under conventional microfluidic confinement. We present experimental studies of nematic flow in microchannels with homeotropic surface anchoring conditions. We show how different characteristic flow regimes depend on the driving pressure and the geometry of the confinement. We also demonstrate controlled shaping of the nematic flow fronts by tuning the liquid crystal orientational profiles, which are capable of multi-stream velocity profiles and temperature responsive flow steering.