Cuboidal liquid crystal phases under multiaxial geometrical frustration
Abstract
Cuboidal liquid crystal phases – the so-called blue phases – consist of a network of topological defects arranged into a cubic symmetry. They exhibit striking optical properties, including Bragg reflection in the visible range and fast response times. Confining surfaces can interfere with the packing of such a network, leading to structures that have not been explored before. In this work, a Landau–de Gennes free energy formalism for the tensor alignment field Q is used to investigate the behavior of chiral liquid crystals under non-isotropic confinement. The underlying free energy functional is solved by relying on a Monte Carlo method that facilitates efficient exploration of configuration space. The results of simulations are expressed in terms of phase diagrams as a function of chirality and temperature for three families of spheroids: oblate, spherical, and prolate. Upon deformation, blue phases adapt and transform to accommodate the geometrical constraints, thereby resulting in a wider range of thermal stability. For oblate spheroids, confinement interferes with the development of a full blue phase structure, resulting on a combination of half skyrmions. For prolate spheroids, the blue phases are hybridized and exhibit features of blue phases I and II. More generally, it is shown that mechanicalmore »
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[1];
[1]
- Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
- Univ. of Guanajuato (Mexico)
- Univ. Nacional de Colombia-Sede Medellín (Colombia)
- Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Laboratory Computing Resource Center (LCRC); Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); COLCIENCIAS
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1630073
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1591699; OSTI ID: 1603448
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0004025; 110-165-843-748
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Soft Matter
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 16; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 1744-683X
- Publisher:
- Royal Society of Chemistry
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 42 ENGINEERING
Citation Formats
Palacio-Betancur, Viviana, Armas-Pérez, Julio C., Villada-Gil, Stiven, Abbott, Nicholas L., Hernández-Ortiz, Juan P., and de Pablo, Juan J. Cuboidal liquid crystal phases under multiaxial geometrical frustration. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1039/C9SM02021G.
Palacio-Betancur, Viviana, Armas-Pérez, Julio C., Villada-Gil, Stiven, Abbott, Nicholas L., Hernández-Ortiz, Juan P., & de Pablo, Juan J. Cuboidal liquid crystal phases under multiaxial geometrical frustration. United States. https://doi.org/10.1039/C9SM02021G
Palacio-Betancur, Viviana, Armas-Pérez, Julio C., Villada-Gil, Stiven, Abbott, Nicholas L., Hernández-Ortiz, Juan P., and de Pablo, Juan J. Tue .
"Cuboidal liquid crystal phases under multiaxial geometrical frustration". United States. https://doi.org/10.1039/C9SM02021G. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1630073.
@article{osti_1630073,
title = {Cuboidal liquid crystal phases under multiaxial geometrical frustration},
author = {Palacio-Betancur, Viviana and Armas-Pérez, Julio C. and Villada-Gil, Stiven and Abbott, Nicholas L. and Hernández-Ortiz, Juan P. and de Pablo, Juan J.},
abstractNote = {Cuboidal liquid crystal phases – the so-called blue phases – consist of a network of topological defects arranged into a cubic symmetry. They exhibit striking optical properties, including Bragg reflection in the visible range and fast response times. Confining surfaces can interfere with the packing of such a network, leading to structures that have not been explored before. In this work, a Landau–de Gennes free energy formalism for the tensor alignment field Q is used to investigate the behavior of chiral liquid crystals under non-isotropic confinement. The underlying free energy functional is solved by relying on a Monte Carlo method that facilitates efficient exploration of configuration space. The results of simulations are expressed in terms of phase diagrams as a function of chirality and temperature for three families of spheroids: oblate, spherical, and prolate. Upon deformation, blue phases adapt and transform to accommodate the geometrical constraints, thereby resulting in a wider range of thermal stability. For oblate spheroids, confinement interferes with the development of a full blue phase structure, resulting on a combination of half skyrmions. For prolate spheroids, the blue phases are hybridized and exhibit features of blue phases I and II. More generally, it is shown that mechanical deformation provides an effective means to control, manipulate and stabilize blue phases and cholesterics confined in tactoids.},
doi = {10.1039/C9SM02021G},
journal = {Soft Matter},
number = 4,
volume = 16,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Jan 14 00:00:00 EST 2020},
month = {Tue Jan 14 00:00:00 EST 2020}
}
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