Manipulation of mechanically nanopatterned line defect assemblies in plane-parallel nematic liquid crystals

Abstract

Topological line defects are ubiquitous in nature and appear at all physical scales, including in condensed matter systems, nuclear physics, and cosmology. Particularly useful systems to study line defects are nematic liquid crystals (LCs), where they describe singular or nonsingular frustrations in orientational order and are referred to as disclinations. In nematic LCs, line defects could be relatively simply created, manipulated, and observed. We consider cases where disclinations are stabilized either topologically in plane-parallel confinements or by chirality. In the former case, we report on studies in which defect core transformations are investigated, the intriguing dynamics of strength disclinations in LCs exhibiting negative dielectric anisotropy, and stabilization and manipulation of assemblies of defects. For the case of chiral nematics, we consider nanoparticle-driven stabilization of defect lattices. The resulting line defect assemblies could pave the way to several applications in photonics, sensitive detectors, and information storage devices. These excitations, moreover, have numerous analogs in other branches of physics. Studying their universal properties in nematics could deepen understanding of several phenomena, which are still unresolved at the fundamental level.

KEYWORDS:

• Disclination
• topological defect
• chirality
• nanoparticles

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

A.J.F., B.S.M., A.L.S., and C.R. were supported financially by the National Science Foundation under grant number DMR1901797 and by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under [grant number NNX17AC76G]. G.C. acknowledges financial support of the grant number CZ.02.2.69/0.0/0.0/16_027/0008465 for Mobility of Researchers under the Operation Programme Research, Development and Education. G.C., B.R. and Z.K acknowledge financial support of grant number P1-0125 of the Slovenian Research Agency. B. R. acknowledges the financial support by a Fulbright grant. B. R. and Z. K. acknowledge the financial support of the grant number J1-9147 of the Slovenian Research Agency. S.K acknowledges financial support of grant numbers P1–0099 and J1-2457 of the Slovenian Research Agency.