Topology and bistability in liquid crystal devices

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Majumdar, Apala and Newton, C. J. P. and Robbins, J. M. and Zyskin, M. (2007) Topology and bistability in liquid crystal devices. Physical Review E, 75 (5). 051703. ISSN 2470-0053 (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.051703)

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Abstract

We study nematic liquid crystal configurations in a prototype bistable device—the post aligned bistable nematic (PABN) cell. Working within the Oseen-Frank continuum model, we describe the liquid crystal configuration by a unit-vector field n , in a model version of the PABN cell. First, we identify four distinct topologies in this geometry. We explicitly construct trial configurations with these topologies which are used as initial conditions for a numerical solver, based on the finite-element method. The morphologies and energetics of the corresponding numerical solutions qualitatively agree with experimental observations and suggest a topological mechanism for bistability in the PABN cell geometry.

ORCID iDs

Majumdar, Apala ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4802-6720, Newton, C. J. P., Robbins, J. M. and Zyskin, M.;
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