Topological Soft Matter for Optics and Photonics

Abstract

Liquid crystal colloids are interesting for a variety of mechanisms—including self-assembly, optical-tweezers assisted assembly, topology, and material flow—that can be used to create various complex optical and photonic structures. Here, we present a brief overview of liquid crystal colloidal structures, as recently achieved by numerical modeling and experiments. Central to the structures are complex conformations of topological defects, as they can bind, stabilize, or distort the structure. Using topological and geometrical arguments, we show that the defects can be controllably rewired and imprinted, for example by using optical tweezers. We show that 3D colloidal crystals can be assembled from elastic dipoles of spherical beads in nematic liquid crystals or via inherently inhomogeneous order profiles in bulk and confined cholesteric blue phases. Colloidal crystals are generalized to close-packed colloidal lattices, which we show can serve as natural templates for defect networks. Finally, photonic bands are calculated for selected structures and possible defects in the structure are discussed.