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Updated: May 28, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
A self-quenched defect glass in a colloid-nematic liquid crystal composite
T A Wood1, J S Lintuvuori, A B Schofield
1Scottish Universities Physics Alliance and School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh, James Clerk Maxwell Building, Kings Buildings, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK.
Abstract:
Colloidal particles immersed in liquid crystals frustrate orientational order. This generates defect lines known as disclinations. At the core of these defects, the orientational order drops sharply. We have discovered a class of soft solids, with shear moduli up to 10(4) pascals, containing high concentrations of colloidal particles (volume fraction φ ≳ 20%) directly dispersed into a nematic liquid crystal. Confocal microscopy and computer simulations show that the mechanical strength derives from a percolated network of defect lines entangled with the particles in three dimensions. Such a "self-quenched glass" of defect lines and particles can be considered a self-organized analog of the "vortex glass" state in type II superconductors.
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