Thermal actuation of topological soliton embedded into liquid crystal coating

Abstract

Liquid crystal network has been in scope to obtain responsive material. Inspired by biomimicry, a large scale of applications based on tunability of surface properties are developed. Different stimuli such as temperature, light, electric field, and chemical environment have been used. The response and modulation are featured by the director field of the material which is kept by the photopolymerization process. The spatial distribution of the director n represents the long axes of our nematic liquid crystal, and it can be controlled using different techniques. Our method generates topological defects before photopolymerization as a template to induce tunable surface topographic patterns. The richness of the different structures allows us to create a library of surface morphology. Here we present the modulation of different pseudo objects, as torons, twistions, cholesteric fingers of different natures and looped onto themselves. Those structures exhibit exotic modulation upon thermal deformation with an amplitude reaching up to 40% of the initial thickness.