Liquid crystal defect structures with Möbius strip topology

Abstract

Topological solitons commonly appear as energy-minimizing field configurations, but examples of stable, spatially localized objects with coexisting solitonic structures and singular defects are rare. Here we use a nonpolar chiral liquid crystal system to show how twist domain walls can co-self-assemble with vortices to form spatially localized topological objects with spontaneous folding. These soliton–vortex assemblies, which we call ‘möbiusons’, have a topology of the molecular alignment field resembling that of the Möbius strip’s surface and package localized field excitations into folded structures within a confinement-frustrated uniform far-field background. Upon supplying energy in the form of electric pulses, möbiusons with different overall symmetries of structure exhibit folding-dependent rotational and translational motions, as well as topological cargo-carrying abilities that can be controlled by tuning the amplitude and frequency of the applied fields. We demonstrate on-demand transformations between various möbiusons and show examples of encoding information by manipulating folds in such structures. A model based on the energetics of solitons and vortices provides insights into the origins of the folding instability, whereas minimization of the Landau–de Gennes free energy closely reproduces details of their internal structure. Our findings may provide a route towards topology-enabled light-steering designs.

Planar Spin Glass with Topologically Protected Mazes in the Liquid Crystal Targeting for Reconfigurable Micro Security Media

“…Typically, topological soliton formed in the chiral LCs is knotted LC director ( n̂ ) field configurations embedded in uniformly aligned LCs, where n̂ indicates the longitudinal axis of rod‐like LC molecules. [ 23–30 ] The behavior of this topological soliton of LCs is similar to that of a solitary wave in nature, known as a soliton, and it does not break apart without external stimuli above its stabilization energy barrier. Among various topological solitons in the chiral LCs, cholesteric fingers (CFs), including CF‐1, CF‐2, and CF‐3, can serve as the 1D topological solitons.…”

New quasiperiodic structures in nematic liquid crystals

“…26 Additionally, soliton-vortex objects, termed mo ¨biusons, can self-assemble into a diverse array of configurations in response to an electric pulse. 27 In this paper, we show that it is possible to construct other domain wall patterns by using electrodes at appropriate positions and voltages as illustrated in Fig. 1(a).…”

“…26 Additionally, soliton-vortex objects, termed möbiusons, can self-assemble into a diverse array of configurations in response to an electric pulse. 27…”

Field-controlled dynamics of skyrmions and monopoles

“…A few examples include embedding π 2 ( 2 ) skyrmions in the 3D space as torons and π 1 ( 1 ) twist walls in the 2D space as one of the common cholesteric finger structures and recently observed configurations of Möbiusons (13,14).…”