Topological transformations of Hopf solitons in chiral ferromagnets and liquid crystals.

ABSTRACT: Liquid crystals are widely known for their facile responses to external fields, which forms a basis of the modern information display technology. However, switching of molecular alignment field configurations typically involves topologically trivial structures, although singular line and point defects often appear as short-lived transient states. Here, we demonstrate electric and magnetic switching of nonsingular solitonic structures in chiral nematic and ferromagnetic liquid crystals. These topological soliton structures are characterized by Hopf indices, integers corresponding to the numbers of times that closed-loop-like spatial regions (dubbed "preimages") of two different single orientations of rod-like molecules or magnetization are linked with each other. We show that both dielectri

SUBMITTER: Tai JB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5798365 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature