Topological Switching and Orbiting Dynamics of Colloidal Spheres Dressed with Chiral Nematic Solitons

Porenta, T.; Čopar, S.; Ackerman, P. J.; Pandey, M. B.; Varney, M. C. M.; Smalyukh, I. I.; Žumer, S.

doi:10.1038/srep07337

Title: Topological Switching and Orbiting Dynamics of Colloidal Spheres Dressed with Chiral Nematic Solitons

Journal Article · Fri Dec 05 00:00:00 EST 2014 · Scientific Reports

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/srep07337· OSTI ID:1624753

Porenta, T. ^[1]; Čopar, S. ^[2]; Ackerman, P. J. ^[3]; Pandey, M. B. ^[3]; Varney, M. C. M. ^[3]; Smalyukh, I. I. ^[4]; Žumer, S. ^[5]

Univ. of Ljubljana (Slovenia)
Univ. of Ljubljana (Slovenia); J. Stefan Inst., Ljubljana (Slovenia); Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Univ. of Ljubljana (Slovenia); J. Stefan Inst., Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Metastable configurations formed by defects, inclusions, elastic deformations and topological solitons in liquid crystals are a promising choice for building photonic crystals and metamaterials with a potential for new optical applications. Local optical modification of the director or introduction of colloidal inclusions into a moderately chiral nematic liquid crystal confined to a homeotropic cell creates localized multistable chiral solitons. Here we induce solitons that ‘‘dress’’ the dispersed spherical particles treated for tangential degenerate boundary conditions, and perform controlled switching of their state using focused optical beams. Two optically switchable distinct metastable states, toron and hopfion, bound to colloidal spheres into structures with different topological charges are investigated. Their structures are examined using Q-tensor based numerical simulations and compared to the profiles reconstructed from the experiments. A topological explanation of observed multistability is constructed.

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Research Organization:: Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0010305; ER46921; P1-0099; Z1-6725

OSTI ID:: 1624753

Journal Information:: Scientific Reports, Vol. 4, Issue 1; ISSN 2045-2322

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 23 works

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Minimizers of the Landau–de Gennes Energy Around a Spherical Colloid Particle Alama, Stan; Bronsard, Lia; Lamy, Xavier Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis, Vol. 222, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00205-016-1005-z	journal	May 2016
Concurrent guiding of light and heat by transformation optics and transformation thermodynamics via soft matter Barros, Wallysson K. P.; Pereira, Erms Scientific Reports, Vol. 8, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-29866-w	journal	July 2018
Stability of a double twisted structure in spherical cholesteric droplets Yoshioka, Jun; Ito, Fumiya; Tabe, Yuka Soft Matter, Vol. 12, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1039/c5sm02838h	journal	January 2016
Minimizers of the Landau-de Gennes energy around a spherical colloid particle Alama, Stan; Bronsard, Lia; Lamy, Xavier arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1504.00421	text	January 2015
Topology-commanded optical properties of bistable electric-field-induced torons in cholesteric bubble domains Varanytsia, Andrii; Posnjak, Gregor; Mur, Urban Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-16241-4	journal	November 2017
Collective behavior of active topological solitons, knotted streamlines, and transport of cargo in liquid crystals Sohn, Hayley R. O.; Ackerman, Paul J.; Boyle, Timothy J. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1711.01354	text	January 2017

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