Lattice Boltzmann Simulations of Cholesteric Liquid Crystals: Permeative Flows, Doubly Twisted Textures and Cubic Blue Phases

Abstract

We present a lattice Boltzmann algorithm to solve the Beris-Edwards equations of motion for a cholesteric liquid crystal. We use our algorithm to investigate permeative flow. We find that, for helices pinned at the boundary, a small body force leads to a huge viscosity increase whereas larger ones induce no increase. This shear thinning is in agreement with experiments. If, instead, the helix lies perpendicular to the plates, there is almost no viscosity increase. For strong forcing, we identify a flow-induced double twist in the director field. We compare this texture with the static double twist of cubic blue phases.

Numerical results for the blue phases

“…cholesteric rheology [59,60,61,62,63,64] and the effect of flow on device switching [65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73]. Because of their disclination structure the kinetics and the rheology of the blue phases is an exciting, but demanding, numerical problem which requires intensive numerical resources.…”

Hierarchical Approach to Flow Calculations for Polymeric Liquid Crystals

“…although spatially non-homogeneous, the velocity field was obtained non-consistently from a simpler constitutive law, like in the work by Grosso et al 6 , where Doi's equation was solved in given Newtonian kinematics in a largeeccentricity journal-bearing geometry. More recently, Lattice Boltzmann methods have also been used in conjunction with the LCP model of Beris and Edwards [13][14][15][16][17][18][19] .…”

Carbon dots stabilized photoluminescent blue phase liquid crystals

“…Driven by a strong chiral force between molecules, blue phase liquid crystal molecules can self-assemble to form double-twisted cylinders, stacking in space to form periodic 3D cubic lattice nanostructures. The helical structure and periodic structure of blue phase liquid crystal lead to its unique optical properties, such as selective reflection, circular dichroism, optical rotation, birefringence-free, etc [4][5][6][7]. Compared with traditional liquid crystals, BPLC has more advantages in the display, such as sub-millisecond response time, no need for viewing angle compensation film, color filter, surface alignment, and polarizer [8][9][10][11][12].…”