Dr. Jun-ichi Fukuda: Liquid crystalline blue phase and its exotic defect structures under confinement

Pred predavanjem vse udeležence vabimo na čaj!

Povzetek:

   Liquid crystalline blue phase and its exotic defect structures under confinement

   Dr. Jun-ichi Fukuda, Nanosystem Research Institute, AIST, Tsukuba, Japan*

Liquid crystals have attracted physicists as intriguing  self-organizing soft materials with various types topological defects associated with broken rotational or translational symmetry. In this talk, I will particularly focus on cholesteric blue phases of a chiral liquid crystal which comprise an intricate network of topological line defects of orientational order (disclinations). After a brief review of cholesteric blue phases, I will present some of our numerical results concerning the structures of a cholesteric blue phase when is is strongly confined between parallel plates.  It is shown that a confined system exhibits a rich variety of defect structures not found in bulk cholesteric blue phases or any other liquid crystalline materials. One notable example is a hexagonal lattice of Skyrmion excitations, a vortex-like structure that has been drawing considerable attention in diverse fields of condensed matter physics.

*The visit is supported by the Center of Excellence NAMASTE