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Updated: Oct 25, 2025

Novel Techniques for Observing Structural Dynamics of Photoresponsive Liquid Crystals
Published on: May 29, 2018
Layering transitions and metastable structures of cholesteric liquid crystals in cylindrical confinement
Jonghee Eun1, Joseph Pollard2, Sung-Jo Kim1,3
1Department of Physics, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea.
Abstract:
Our study of cholesteric lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals in cylindrical confinement reveals the topological aspects of cholesteric liquid crystals. The double-twist configurations we observe exhibit discontinuous layering transitions, domain formation, metastability, and chiral point defects as the concentration of chiral dopant is varied. We demonstrate that these distinct layer states can be distinguished by chiral topological invariants. We show that changes in the layer structure give rise to a chiral soliton similar to a toron, comprising a metastable pair of chiral point defects. Through the applicability of the invariants we describe to general systems, our work has broad relevance to the study of chiral materials.
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