Issue 30, 2016

Orientational properties of nematic disclinations

Abstract

Topological defects play a pivotal role in the physics of liquid crystals and represent one of the most prominent and well studied aspects of mesophases. While in two-dimensional nematics, disclinations are traditionally treated as point-like objects, recent experimental studies on active nematics have suggested that half-strength disclinations might in fact possess a polar structure. In this article, we provide a precise definition of polarity for half-strength nematic disclinations, we introduce a simple and robust method to calculate this quantity from experimental and numerical data and we investigate how the orientational properties of half-strength disclinations affect their relaxational dynamics.

Graphical abstract: Orientational properties of nematic disclinations

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
17 May 2016
Accepted
06 Jul 2016
First published
15 Jul 2016

Soft Matter, 2016,12, 6490-6495

Orientational properties of nematic disclinations

A. J. Vromans and L. Giomi, Soft Matter, 2016, 12, 6490 DOI: 10.1039/C6SM01146B

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