Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent, OH, 44242, USA.
Materials Science Graduate Program, Kent State University, Kent, OH, 44242, USA.
Nat Commun. 2023 Feb 10;14(1):748. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-36326-1.
Spontaneous electric polarization of solid ferroelectrics follows aligning directions of crystallographic axes. Domains of differently oriented polarization are separated by domain walls (DWs), which are predominantly flat and run along directions dictated by the bulk translational order and the sample surfaces. Here we explore DWs in a ferroelectric nematic (N) liquid crystal, which is a fluid with polar long-range orientational order but no crystallographic axes nor facets. We demonstrate that DWs in the absence of bulk and surface aligning axes are shaped as conic sections. The conics bisect the angle between two neighboring polarization fields to avoid electric charges. The remarkable bisecting properties of conic sections, known for millennia, play a central role as intrinsic features of liquid ferroelectrics. The findings could be helpful in designing patterns of electric polarization and space charge.
固体铁电体的自发极化遵循晶轴的取向方向。具有不同极化方向的畴由畴壁（DW）隔开，DW 主要是平面的，并沿着由体平移序和样品表面决定的方向延伸。在这里，我们探索了铁电向列（N）液晶中的 DW，它是一种具有极性长程取向序但没有晶轴或晶面的流体。我们证明，在没有体和表面取向轴的情况下，DW 被塑造成圆锥曲线。圆锥曲线平分两个相邻极化场之间的角度，以避免电荷。圆锥曲线的这种等分特性已经存在了几千年，作为液体铁电体的固有特征，起着核心作用。这些发现可能有助于设计电极化和空间电荷的图案。
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