Defect trajectories in nematic shells: Role of elastic anisotropy and thickness heterogeneity Auteur(s): Sec David, Lopez-Leon T., Nobili M., Blanc C., Fernandez-Nieves Alberto, Ravnik Miha, Zumer Slobodan (Article) Publié: Physical Review E: Statistical, Nonlinear, And Soft Matter Physics, vol. 86 p.020705 (2012) Texte intégral en Openaccess : Ref HAL: hal-00733363_v1 PMID 23005715 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.86.020705 WoS: 000308132400001 Exporter : BibTex | endNote 44 Citations Résumé: We introduce the idea of transformation trajectories to describe the evolution of nematic shells in terms of defect locations and director field when the elastic anisotropy and the shell thickness heterogeneity vary. Experiments are compared to numerical results to clarify the exact role played by these two parameters. We demonstrate that heterogeneity in thickness is a result of a symmetry breaking initiated by buoyancy and enhanced by liquid crystal elasticity, and is irrespective of the elastic anisotropy. In contrast, elastic anisotropy--in particular, disfavored bend distortion--drives an asymmetric defect reorganization. These shell states can be both stable or metastable. |