M. B. Pandey, T. Porenta, J. Brewer, A. Burkart, S. Čopar, S. Žumer, and Ivan I. Smalyukh We describe dipolar nematic colloids comprising mutually bound solid microspheres, three-dimensional skyrmions, and point defects in a molecular alignment field of chiral nematic liquid crystals. Nonlinear optical imaging and numerical modeling based on minimization of Landau–de Gennes free energy reveal that the particle-induced skyrmions resemble torons and hopfions, while matching surface boundary conditions at the interfaces of liquid crystal and colloidal spheres. Laser tweezers and videomicroscopy reveal that the skyrmion-colloidal hybrids exhibit purely repulsive elastic pair interactions in the case of parallel dipoles and an unexpected reversal of interaction forces from repulsive to attractive as the center-to-center distance decreases for antiparallel dipoles. The ensuing elastic self-assembly gives rise to colloidal chains of antiparallel dipoles with particles entangled by skyrmions. DOI
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 14:14:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015