Optical Imaging and Analytical Design of Localized Topological Structures in Chiral Liquid Crystals

Abstract

We combine numerical modeling and analytical design techniques to study several of the most common localized topological structures in frustrated chiral nematic liquid crystal cells. An energy minimization procedure is applied to the lattice model to simulate the director field distributions. These distributions are also approximated using the suitably designed analytical ansatz. We present both simulated and approximated results for optical polarizing microscopy textures and different visualizations of director field structure such as distributions of the azimuthal director angle and isolines for the normal component of the director in coordinate planes. The ansatz correctly mimicked the geometry and optical properties of the solitonic structures under consideration.

Keywords

• localized topological structures
• chiral liquid crystals
• 3D soliton
• skyrmion
• optical imaging