0000000000156883
AUTHOR
Per Rudquist
showing 3 related works from this author
Tuning the defect configurations in nematic and smectic liquid crystalline shells
2013
Thin liquid crystalline shells surrounding and surrounded by aqueous phases can be conveniently produced using a nested capillary microfluidic system, as was first demonstrated by Fernandez-Nieves et al. in 2007. By choosing particular combinations of stabilizers in the internal and external phases, different types of alignment, uniform or hybrid, can be ensured within the shell. Here, we investigate shells in the nematic and smectic phases under varying boundary conditions, focusing in particular on textural transformations during phase transitions, on the interaction between topological defects in the director field and inclusions in the liquid crystal (LC), and on the possibility to rel…
ChemInform Abstract: Tuning the Defect Configurations in Nematic and Smectic Liquid Crystalline Shells
2013
Thin liquid crystalline shells surrounding and surrounded by aqueous phases can be conveniently produced using a nested capillary microfluidic system, as was first demonstrated by Fernandez-Nieves et al. in 2007. By choosing particular combinations of stabilizers in the internal and external phases, different types of alignment, uniform or hybrid, can be ensured within the shell. Here, we investigate shells in the nematic and smectic phases under varying boundary conditions, focusing in particular on textural transformations during phase transitions, on the interaction between topological defects in the director field and inclusions in the liquid crystal (LC), and on the possibility to relo…
Towards tunable defect arrangements in smectic liquid crystal shells utilizing the nematic–smectic transition in hybrid-aligned geometries
2012
We produce and investigate liquid crystal shells with hybrid alignment—planar at one boundary, homeotropic at the other—undergoing a transition between the nematic (N) and smectic-A (SmA) phases. The shells display a dynamic sequence of patterns, the details depending on the alignment agents and on the diameter and thickness of the shell. In shells of sufficient diameter we typically find a transient striped texture near the N–SmA transition, stabilising into a pattern of tiled, more or less regularly spaced focal conic domains in the SmA phase. The domain size and spacing decrease with reduced shell thickness. In case of strong homeotropic anchoring at one boundary and small shell size, ho…