Ackerman Paul J, van de Lagemaat Jao, Smalyukh Ivan I
1] Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA [2] Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
1] Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA [2] National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado 80401, USA [3] Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, National Renewable Energy Laboratory and University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
Nat Commun. 2015 Jan 21;6:6012. doi: 10.1038/ncomms7012.
Some of the most exotic condensed matter phases, such as twist grain boundary and blue phases in liquid crystals and Abrikosov phases in superconductors, contain arrays of topological defects in their ground state. Comprised of a triangular lattice of double-twist tubes of magnetization, the so-called 'A-phase' in chiral magnets is an example of a thermodynamically stable phase with topologically nontrivial solitonic field configurations referred to as two-dimensional skyrmions, or baby-skyrmions. Here we report that three-dimensional skyrmions in the form of double-twist tori called 'hopfions', or 'torons' when accompanied by additional self-compensating defects, self-assemble into periodic arrays and linear chains that exhibit electrostriction. In confined chiral nematic liquid crystals, this self-assembly is similar to that of liquid crystal colloids and originates from long-range elastic interactions between particle-like skyrmionic torus knots of molecular alignment field, which can be tuned from isotropic repulsive to weakly or highly anisotropic attractive by low-voltage electric fields.
一些最为奇特的凝聚态物质相，比如液晶中的扭曲晶界相和蓝相以及超导体中的阿布里科索夫相，在其基态中包含拓扑缺陷阵列。手性磁体中所谓的“A相”由磁化的双扭曲管的三角晶格组成，它是一种热力学稳定相的示例，具有拓扑非平凡的孤子场构型，被称为二维斯格明子或小斯格明子。在此我们报告，呈双扭曲环面形式的三维斯格明子，当伴有额外的自补偿缺陷时被称为“霍普夫离子”或“环面子”，它们会自组装成呈现电致伸缩效应的周期性阵列和线性链。在受限的手性向列型液晶中，这种自组装类似于液晶胶体的自组装，并且源于分子排列场的类粒子斯格明子环面纽结之间的长程弹性相互作用，这种相互作用可通过低电压电场从各向同性排斥调谐为弱或强各向异性吸引。
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