Abstract
We studied the impact of the cell thickness on configurations of line disclinations within a plane-parallel nematic cell. The Lebwohl-Lasher semimicroscopic approach was used and (meta)stable nematic configurations were calculated using Brownian molecular dynamics. Defect patterns were enforced topologically via boundary conditions. We imposed periodic circular nematic surface fields at each confining surface. The resulting structures exhibit line defects which either connect the facing plates or remain confined within the layers near confining plates. The first structure is stable in relatively thin cells and the latter one in thick cells. We focused on structures at the threshold regime where both structures compete. We demonstrated that “history” of samples could have strong impact on resulting nematic configurations.
Highlights
Line topological defects are ubiquitous in nematic liquid crystals (NLC) which is fingerprinted even in their name [1]
We investigated nematic structures within plane-parallel cells of thickness h=La0 whose bounding plates enforced topologically line-defect patterns
On the other hand in thick cells the defect lines remain confined to the vicinity of the bounding plates
Summary
Line topological defects are ubiquitous in nematic liquid crystals (NLC) which is fingerprinted even in their name [1] They could be stabilised topologically by appropriate boundary conditions [2, 3] or due to energy reasons [4]. Nematic uniaxial liquid crystals exhibit simultaneously liquid properties and local orientational order [5]. The latter is at macroscopic level commonly presented by the nematic director field ⇀n. One can assign the total topological charge q to a line defect [6] by enclosing it by a surface This charge is integer and reveals how many realizations of all orientations are realised in the nematic order parameter space [6].
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