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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Defect-populated configurations in nematic solid tori and cylinders

Javier Rojo-González1,2, Livio Nicola Carenza3,4, Alexis de la Cotte1, Ludwig A. Hoffmann3, Luca Giomi3, and Alberto Fernandez-Nieves1,2,5

  • 1Department of Condensed Matter Physics, University of Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
  • 2Institute of Complex Systems (UBICS), University of Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
  • 3Instituut-Lorentz, Universiteit Leiden, P.O. Box 9506, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
  • 4Department of Physics, Koç University, Rumelifeneri Yolu 34450, Sariyer, Istanbul, Turkey
  • 5ICREA-Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats, 08010 Barcelona, Spain

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Phys. Rev. Research 6, L012065 – Published 27 March, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.L012065

Abstract

We make toroidal droplets of nematic liquid crystal and explore the defect-populated stable configurations that appear after heating to the isotropic phase and cooling back to the nematic phase. These configurations, as confirmed by simulations, are made of defect pairs where the positive/negative defect is located in the region of maximum positive/negative Gaussian curvature. Moreover, we demonstrate through experiments and simulations that these defect pairs also appear and are stable in cylinders, which have zero Gaussian curvature, highlighting the crucial role of bulk nematic elasticity in stabilizing these structures.

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Phys. Rev. Research 6, L012065– Published 27 March, 2024
  • Received 19 June 2023
  • Accepted 1 February 2024
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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