Tang Xingzhou, Atzin Noe, Mozaffari Ali, Das Soumik, Abbott Nicholas L, de Pablo Juan J
Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States.
College of Flexible Electronics (Future Technology), Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China.
ACS Nano. 2024 Apr 23;18(16):10768-10775. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.3c10800. Epub 2024 Apr 10.
Solitons in nematic liquid crystals facilitate the rapid transport and sensing in microfluidic systems. Little is known about the elementary conditions needed to create solitons in nematic materials. In this study, we apply a combination of theory, computational simulations, and experiments to examine the formation and propagation of solitary waves, or "solitons", in nematic liquid crystals under the influence of an alternating current (AC) electric field. We find that these solitary waves exhibit "butterfly"-like or "bullet"-like structures that travel in the direction perpendicular to the applied electric field. Such structures propagate over long distances without losing their initial shape. The theoretical framework adopted here helps identify several key factors leading to the formation of solitons in the absence of electrostatic interactions. These factors include surface irregularities, flexoelectric polarization, unequal elastic constants, and negative anisotropic dielectric permittivity. The results of simulations are shown to be in good agreement with our own experimental observations, serving to establish the validity of the theoretical concepts and ideas advanced in this work.
向列型液晶中的孤子有助于微流体系统中的快速传输和传感。对于在向列型材料中产生孤子所需的基本条件，人们了解甚少。在本研究中，我们结合理论、计算模拟和实验，来研究在交变电流（AC）电场影响下向列型液晶中孤立波（即“孤子”）的形成与传播。我们发现，这些孤立波呈现出“蝴蝶”状或“子弹”状结构，并沿垂直于外加电场的方向传播。此类结构能长距离传播而不改变其初始形状。这里采用的理论框架有助于识别在不存在静电相互作用时导致孤子形成的几个关键因素。这些因素包括表面不规则性、挠曲电极化、不等弹性常数以及负各向异性介电常数。模拟结果与我们自己的实验观测结果高度吻合，从而证实了本工作中提出的理论概念和观点的有效性。
