Eun Jonghee, Pollard Joseph, Kim Sung-Jo, Machon Thomas, Jeong Joonwoo
Department of Physics, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea.
Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Aug 17;118(33). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2102926118.
Our study of cholesteric lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals in cylindrical confinement reveals the topological aspects of cholesteric liquid crystals. The double-twist configurations we observe exhibit discontinuous layering transitions, domain formation, metastability, and chiral point defects as the concentration of chiral dopant is varied. We demonstrate that these distinct layer states can be distinguished by chiral topological invariants. We show that changes in the layer structure give rise to a chiral soliton similar to a toron, comprising a metastable pair of chiral point defects. Through the applicability of the invariants we describe to general systems, our work has broad relevance to the study of chiral materials.
我们对柱状受限胆甾型溶致变色液晶的研究揭示了胆甾型液晶的拓扑特性。随着手性掺杂剂浓度的变化,我们观察到的双螺旋构型呈现出不连续的分层转变、畴形成、亚稳性和手性点缺陷。我们证明,这些不同的层状态可以通过手性拓扑不变量来区分。我们表明,层结构的变化会产生一种类似于环面孤子的手性孤子,它由一对亚稳的手性点缺陷组成。通过我们所描述的不变量对一般系统的适用性,我们的工作对手性材料的研究具有广泛的相关性。