Around the corner: Colloidal assembly and wiring in groovy nematic cells.

Phys Rev E

Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter (LRSM), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Published: March 2016

AI Article Synopsis

  • We investigate colloids in nematic liquid crystal within grooves that have parallel alignment.
  • We discover "eyelashes," which are chains of dipoles aligning with the local director field, leading to the creation of curvilinear colloidal wires.
  • By varying the groove's aspect ratio, we identify different stable configurations, demonstrating how topographical features and colloidal distortions can be used to design flexible structures in nematic materials.

Article Abstract

We study colloids suspended in nematic liquid crystal in grooves with homeotropic anchoring. We observe "eyelashes", topological dipole chains that follow the local, curved director field. These beget wires that connect the groove corners to topographical features on the cell lid to yield oriented, curvilinear colloidal wires spanning the cell, formed in a nonsingular director field. As the groove aspect ratio changes, we find different ground states and corroborate our observation with numerics. Our results rely upon on the scale of topographical features, the sharpness of edges, and the colloid-sourced distortions; all these elements can be exploited to guide the formation of reconfigurable structures in nematics.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.93.032705DOI Listing

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