Determination of azimuthal anchoring strength in twisted nematic liquid crystal cells using heterodyne polarimeter.

Two external-field-free methods are presented for measuring the azimuthal anchoring strength in twisted nematic liquid crystal (TNLC) cells. For asymmetrical TNLC samples, the twist angle is derived from the phase of the detected signal in a phase-sensitive heterodyne polarimeter and is then used to calculate the weak anchoring strength directly. The measurement resolution which is found to be about 0.