Abstract: With elastic theory of liquid crystal,we investigate bulk flexoelectric effect in a nematic liquid crystal(NLC) cell with applied voltage.The differential equation of director tilt angle θ is obtained by the variation theory. The distributions of director in a strong anchoring planar aligned cell and in a hybrid aligned nematic(HAN) cell are calculated. The transmittance characteristic of these liquid crystal cells is obtained with Jones matrix method.Influence of bulk flexoelectric effect on the distribution of director and characteristic transmittance of liquid crystal cells are analyzed.

Key words: bulk flexoelectric effect, variation theory, Jones matrix method, transmittance characteristic