Two-dimensional, blue phase tactoids

ABSTRACT

We use full nematohydrodynamic simulations to study the statics and dynamics of monolayers of cholesteric liquid crystals. Using chirality and temperature as control parameters, we show that we can recover the two-dimensional blue phases recently observed in chiral nematics, where hexagonal lattices of half-skyrmion topological excitations are interleaved by lattices of trefoil topological defects. Furthermore, we characterise the transient dynamics during the quench from isotropic to blue phase. We then proceed by confining cholesteric stripes and blue phases within finite-sized tactoids and show that it is possible to access a wealth of reconfigurable droplet shapes including disk-like, elongated and star-shaped morphologies. Our results demonstrate a potential for constructing controllable, stable structures of liquid crystals by constraining 2D blue phases and varying the chirality, surface tension and elastic constants.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Keywords:

• Theory and computation
• liquid crystals
• condensed matter physics

Acknowledgments

We thank Maxime Tortora for helpful conversations and software optimisation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the DiStruc Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 641839. AD was supported by a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Research Fellowship.