Tai Jung-Shen B, Smalyukh Ivan I
Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
Materials Science and Engineering Program, Soft Materials Research Center and Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
Phys Rev E. 2020 Apr;101(4-1):042702. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.101.042702.
Chiral condensed matter systems, such as liquid crystals and magnets, exhibit a host of spatially localized topological structures that emerge from the medium's tendency to twist and its competition with confinement and field coupling effects. We show that the strength of perpendicular surface boundary conditions can be used to control the structure and topology of solitonic and other localized field configurations. By combining numerical modeling and three-dimensional imaging of the director field, we reveal structural stability diagrams and intertransformation of twisted walls and fingers, torons, and skyrmions and their crystalline organizations upon changing boundary conditions. Our findings provide a recipe for controllably realizing skyrmions, torons, and hybrid solitonic structures possessing features of both of them, which will aid in fundamental explorations and technological uses of such topological solitons. Moreover, we discuss how other material parameters can be used to determine soliton stability and how similar principles can be systematically applied to other liquid crystal solitons and solitons in other material systems.
手性凝聚态系统，如液晶和磁体，展现出大量空间局域化的拓扑结构，这些结构源自介质的扭曲倾向及其与限制和场耦合效应的竞争。我们表明，垂直表面边界条件的强度可用于控制孤子及其他局域场构型的结构和拓扑。通过结合指向矢场的数值模拟和三维成像，我们揭示了在改变边界条件时扭曲壁和指状结构、环面孤子和斯格明子及其晶体组织的结构稳定性图和相互转变。我们的发现为可控地实现具有两者特征的斯格明子、环面孤子和混合孤子结构提供了方法，这将有助于对此类拓扑孤子的基础探索和技术应用。此外，我们讨论了如何利用其他材料参数来确定孤子稳定性，以及如何将类似原理系统地应用于其他液晶孤子和其他材料系统中的孤子。
