Nontrivial shape of colloidal particles create complex elastic distortions and topological defects in liquid crystals and play a key role in governing their electrophoretic propulsion through the medium. Here, we report experimental results on defects and electrophoretic transport of anisometric (snowman-shaped) dielectric particles subjected to an alternating electric field perpendicular to the director in a nematic liquid crystal. We demonstrate that the shape asymmetry gives rise to defect-polymorphism by nucleating point or ring defects at multiple locations on the particle and controls the direction as well as the magnitude of the electrophoretic propulsion. Our findings unveil a novel degree of freedom in translocating microparticles in liquid crystals for applications in microfluidics, controlled transport and assembly.
@article{arxiv.2201.09190,
title = {Defect-polymorphism controlled electrophoretic propulsion of anisometric microparticles in a nematic liquid crystal},
author = {Devika V S and Dinesh Kumar Sahu and Ravi Kumar Pujala and Surajit Dhara},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.09190},
year = {2023}
}