Electro-osmosis and flexo-electricity in the dowser texture

. Due to its low symmetry, the long-lived pseudo-planar texture, dubbed “the dowser texture”, has a flexo-electric spontaneous polarisation 𝐏_fe . Being degenerated, the dowser texture is easily aligned by the electric torque Γ = 𝐏_fe×𝐄 acting on 𝐏 . 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 𝐄 like the electrical one. It is shown that in 5CB the electro-osmotic flows can alter measurements of the flexo-electric polarisation. Graphical abstract