Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Liquid crystals

Defects dictated

Stable particle-like molecular architectures are written in a frustrated chiral-nematic liquid crystal using a vortex laser beam. This fundamentally new mechanism to form toroidal features with anisotropic optical properties has great potential to create new applications in liquid-crystal photonics.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Example of LCs and their alignment under free and constrained conditions.
Figure 2: Triple-twist torons.

References

  1. Smalyukh, I. I., Lansac, Y., Clark, N. A. & Trivedi, R. P. Nature Mater. 9, 139–145 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. De Gennes, P. G. & Prost, J. The Physics of Liquid Crystals 2nd edn (Oxford Univ. Press, 1994).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Kleman, M. & Lavrentovich, O. D. Liq. Cryst. 3 6, 1085–1099 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Musevic, I., Skarabot, M., Tkalec, U., Ravnik, M. & Zumer, S. Science 313, 954–958 (2006).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Broer, D. J., Mol, G. N., van Haaren, J. A. M. M. & Lub, J. Adv. Mater. 11, 573–578 (1999).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Broer, D. Defects dictated. Nature Mater 9, 99–100 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2617

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2617

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing