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Updated: Apr 25, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Generating the Hopf fibration experimentally in nematic liquid crystals
Bryan Gin-ge Chen1, Paul J Ackerman2, Gareth P Alexander3
1Instituut-Lorentz, Universiteit Leiden, Postbus 9506, 2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
Abstract:
The Hopf fibration is an example of a texture: a topologically stable, smooth, global configuration of a field. Here we demonstrate the controlled sculpting of the Hopf fibration in nematic liquid crystals through the control of point defects. We demonstrate how these are related to torons by use of a topological visualization technique derived from the Pontryagin-Thom construction.
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