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Liquid crystals

Tangled loops and knots

Nature Materials volume 13, pages 229–231 (2014)Cite this article

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Knot-shaped micrometric tubes embedded in a liquid crystal induce the formation of defect lines that loop around the knotted tubes to form knots.

The idea of tying a physical field — for example, a magnetic field — into a knot has long fascinated scientists. Unfortunately, tying a knot in a space-filling field is a more subtle affair than tying one's shoelaces: the entire space-filling field has to twist to conform to the knotted region. Following over a century of speculation on how knotted physical fields might behave1, technological advances in our ability to manipulate, image and visualize fields in three dimensions are finally enabling the pursuit of knotted structures in the laboratory. Now, Ivan Smalyukh and colleagues demonstrate in Nature Materials that microscopic knotted loops made of rubber embedded in liquid crystals can coax defect fields to tie themselves into knots2.

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Figure 1: Defect loops and knot-shaped microparticles.
Figure 2: Defect loops winding around knotted microparticles2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. William T. M. Irvine and Dustin Kleckner are at the James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA,

    William T. M. Irvine & Dustin Kleckner

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  1. William T. M. Irvine
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  2. Dustin Kleckner
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Correspondence to William T. M. Irvine.

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Irvine, W., Kleckner, D. Tangled loops and knots. Nature Mater 13, 229–231 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3896

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