  We investigated the effects of laser irradiation on sessile droplets of three
well-known liquid crystalline 12 materials (5CB, 8CB, E7) deposited on the
surface of an iron-doped lithium niobate (LN:Fe) crystal. The static electric
13 field, which is generated via the bulk photovoltaic effect in the LN:Fe
substrate, produces the merging of smaller 14 droplets into filaments oriented
in the radial direction with respect to the laser spot. It also induces
filament jetting 15 from the rim of larger droplets toward the center of the
illumination area. When the laser beam is focused directly 16 onto the larger
droplets, they abruptly disintegrate via the formation of several jet streams.
The described effects are 17 present in the nematic and also in the isotropic
phase. We attribute them to a large gradient of the surface electric field 18
that produces driving forces via the induced dipole moments of the droplets,
analogous to electric field-based droplets 19 transport mechanisms known for
standard dielectric liquids.
