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Updated: Mar 25, 2026

Phase Behavior of Charged Vesicles Under Symmetric and Asymmetric Solution Conditions Monitored with Fluorescence Microscopy
Published on: October 24, 2017
Do Lehmann cholesteric droplets subjected to a temperature gradient rotate as rigid bodies?
1Université de Lyon, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Laboratoire de physique, CNRS, UMR 5672, 46 Allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon, France. guilhem.poy@ens-lyon.fr.
Abstract:
We performed a Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP) experiment during the Lehmann rotation of cholesteric droplets in thermodynamic coexistence with the isotropic liquid and subjected to a temperature gradient. By creating and tracking bleached spots near the surface of banded droplets (in which the cholesteric helix is perpendicular to the gradient) and concentric circle droplets oriented by an electric field (in which the helix is parallel to the gradient), we found that neither type of droplet rotates as a solid. This result shows that the texture rotation is mainly due to the local director rotation.
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