Related papers: Liquid crystals and their defects
Liquid crystal is a typical kind of soft matter that is intermediate between crystalline solids and isotropic fluids. The study of liquid crystals has made tremendous progress over the last four decades, which is of great importance on both…
A review is given of some mathematical contributions, ideas and questions concerning liquid crystals.
Liquid crystals are assemblies of rod-like molecules which self-organize to form mesophases, in-between ordinary liquids and anisotropic crystals. At each point, the molecules collectively orient themselves along a privileged direction,…
The motion of topological defects is an important feature of the dynamics of all liquid crystals, and is especially conspicuous in active liquid crystals. Understanding defect motion is a challenging theoretical problem, because the…
Liquid crystals are the prototype of the so-called soft condensed matter. In simple terms they are "structured liquids" that historically have received a lot of interest because they help to generate new concepts and knowledge in Physics,…
Specific features of the defect modes of cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) with an isotropic defect, as well as their photonic density of states, Q factor, and emission, have been investigated. The effect of the thicknesses of the defect…
A general theory of topological classification of defects is introduced. We illustrate the application of tools from algebraic topology, including homotopy and cohomology groups, to classify defects including several explicit calculations…
Widely known for their uses in displays and electro-optics, liquid crystals are more than just technological marvels. They vividly reveal the topology and structure of various solitonic and singular field configurations, often markedly…
This review introduces the elasticity theory of two-dimensional crystals and nematic liquid crystals on curved surfaces, the energetics of topological defects (disclinations, dislocations and pleats) in these ordered phases, and the…
Topological defects are an essential part of the structure and dynamics of all liquid crystals, and they are particularly important in experiments and simulations on active liquid crystals. In a recent paper, Vromans and Giomi [Soft Matter,…
This work contains a set of lectures on defect structures, mainly in models described by scalar fields in diverse dimensions.
The influence of controlable parameters like temperature and wavelength on the trajectories of light in a nematic liquid crystal with topological defects is studied through a geometric model. The model incorporates phenomenological details…
Liquid crystals generally support orientational singularities of the director field known as topological defects. These latter modifiy transport properties in their vicinity as if the geometry was non-Euclidean. We present a state of the…
The paper presents a teaching module about liquid crystals. Since liquid crystals are linked to everyday student experiences and are also a topic of a current scientific research, they are an excellent candidate of a modern topic to be…
The properties of liquid crystals can be modelled using an order parameter which describes the variability of the local orientation of rod-like molecules. Defects in the director field can arise due to external factors such as applied…
Defects in liquid crystals are of great practical importance and theoretical interest. Despite tremendous efforts, predicting the location and transition of defects under various topological constraint and external field remains to be a…
In complex crystals close to melting or at finite temperatures, different types of defects are ubiquitous and their role becomes relevant in the mechanical response of these solids. Conventional elasticity theory fails to provide a…
Topological defects are distinctive signatures of liquid crystals. They profoundly affect the viscoelastic behavior of the fluid by constraining the orientational structure in a way that inevitably requires global changes not achievable…
The paper is concerned with various issues surrounding the mathematical description of defects in models of liquid crystals, drawing on experience from solid mechanics. The roles played by a suitable choice of function space and by the…
We investigate experimentally and numerically the defect configurations emerging when a cholesteric liquid crystal is confined to a spherical shell. We uncover a rich scenario of defect configurations, some of them non-existent in nematic…