A New Method of Viscosity Determination from the Electro-Optical Response of a Nematic LCD

(Received 7 May 1996, revised 9 August 1996, accepted 14 October 1996)

Abstract
We determine viscosity values of ZLI-2293 (Merck), to our knowledge for the first time, from a measured transmission versus time curve of a TN-cell with the "optical bounce" [1, 2]. Our method combines the measurement of this transmission curve with the simulation of the corresponding director field and a suitable optimization process using Simulated Annealing [3] to obtain the viscosities. The advantage of our approach is the small experimental expense compared to that of a direct viscosimetric measurement while achieving nearly the accuracy of the direct method.