TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gârlea, Ioana C.
AU  - Mulder, Pieter
AU  - Alvarado, José
AU  - Dammone, Oliver
AU  - Aarts, Dirk G. A. L.
AU  - Lettinga, M.P.
AU  - Koenderink, Gijsje H.
AU  - Mulder, Bela M.
TI  - Finite particle size drives defect-mediated domain structures in strongly confined colloidal liquid crystals
JO  - Nature Communications
VL  - 7
SN  - 2041-1723
CY  - London
PB  - Nature Publishing Group
M1  - FZJ-2016-07615
SP  - 12112 -
PY  - 2016
AB  - When liquid crystals are confined to finite volumes, the competition between the surface anchoring imposed by the boundaries and the intrinsic orientational symmetry-breaking of these materials gives rise to a host of intriguing phenomena involving topological defect structures. For synthetic molecular mesogens, like the ones used in liquid-crystal displays, these defect structures are independent of the size of the molecules and well described by continuum theories. In contrast, colloidal systems such as carbon nanotubes and biopolymers have micron-sized lengths, so continuum descriptions are expected to break down under strong confinement conditions. Here, we show, by a combination of computer simulations and experiments with virus particles in tailor-made disk- and annulus-shaped microchambers, that strong confinement of colloidal liquid crystals leads to novel defect-stabilized symmetrical domain structures. These finite-size effects point to a potential for designing optically active microstructures, exploiting the as yet unexplored regime of highly confined liquid crystals.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000379114400001
C6  - pmid:27353002
DO  - DOI:10.1038/ncomms12112
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/825138
ER  -