Comment on The limits of flexoelectricity in liquid crystals [AIP Advances 1, 032120 (2011)]

In their paper, using the principle of energy conservation, F. Castles, S. M. Morris, and H. J. Coles [AIP Advances 1, 032120 (2011)] establish inequalities involving the elastic and dielectric constants and flexoelectric coefficients of liquid crystals. They then argue that recently measured values of flexoelectric coefficients by Harden et al. do not obey these inequalities, hence they violate the principle of energy conservation. In this comment, we point out that in their calculation, Castles et al. use an inappropriate value for an elastic constant, hence their conclusions, predicated on the outcome of this calculation, are not justified. Copyright 2013 Author(s). This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4774285]