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Liquid crystals

Maximizing memory

Nature Materials volume 10, pages 266–268 (2011)Cite this article

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Memory effects resulting from frustration and topology in nematic liquid crystals confined in bicontinuous structures may enable the fabrication of geometrically functionalized materials.

Liquid-crystal (LC) displays contain a micrometre-thin layer of a nematic LC (also called nematogen), which changes the direction of its alignment — the so-called director — in response to an electric field applied to each pixel. The LC must be perfectly ordered for all pixels on the screen, as defects in the alignment of the LC molecules deteriorate the screen's optical quality. However, defects are not always a hindrance. Indeed, a large number of them can bring about unexpected phenomena in anisotropic fluids, such as the formation of colloidal chains1 and two-dimensional colloidal crystals2, or lattices of skyrmion-like excitations3. Writing in Nature Materials, Hajime Tanaka and colleagues demonstrate a new concept for complex nematic systems with lots of defects: topologically induced controllable memory4. Using computer simulations, the authors show that memory effects in nematogens confined in porous structures result from a high density of topological defects, and find that memory is maximized in a simple periodic bicontinuous cubic structure. Their findings may enable new bistable displays based on topology-enabled light scattering.

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Figure 1: Defects arising as a result of liquid crystal molecules pinning to confining surfaces.
Figure 2: Memory effects in a bicontinuous cubic matrix of interconnected spherical cavities filled with a nematic liquid crystal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Igor Muševič and Slobodan Žumer are at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, Ljubljana, Slovenia, and the J. Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, Ljubljana, Slovenia.,

    Igor Muševič & Slobodan Žumer

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  1. Igor Muševič
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  2. Slobodan Žumer
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Correspondence to Igor Muševič or Slobodan Žumer.

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Muševič, I., Žumer, S. Maximizing memory. Nature Mater 10, 266–268 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3000

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