Defect structures in nematic liquid crystal shells of different shapes

ABSTRACT

The present review is devoted to recent studies of structures with topological defects on nematic liquid crystal (NLC) shells of different shapes and to the possibility of using external electric fields to manipulate these structures. It is shown that principal curvatures of bounding surfaces have a strong effect on the number and arrangement of these defects on NLC shells. It is also shown that external electric fields can be used to control the number of valence centers occurring on these shells, thus unveiling their capability of acting as multivalent building blocks for nanophotonic devices.

KEYWORDS:

• Liquid crystals
• defects
• confinement

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior), CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico), FINEP (Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos), and FAPEAL (Fundação de Apoio à Pesquisa do Estado de Alagoas). L.V. Mirantsev also acknowledges the kind hospitality of the Physics Institute at Universidade Federal de Alagoas where this work was developed (grant project CNPq/PV/400149/2014-1).