Multiple chiral topological states in liquid crystals from unstructured light beams

Charles Loussert (1) , Etienne Brasselet (1)

1 LOMA - Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine

It is shown experimentally that unstructured light beams can generate a wealth of distinct metastable defect structures in thin films of chiral liquid crystals. Various kinds of individual chiral topological states are obtained as well as dimers and trimers, which correspond to the entanglement of several topological unit cells. Self-assembled nested assemblies of several metastable particle-like topological states can also be formed. Finally, we propose and experimentally demonstrate an opto-electrical approach to generate tailor-made architectures.

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

Charles Loussert, Etienne Brasselet. Multiple chiral topological states in liquid crystals from unstructured light beams. Applied Physics Letters, 2014, 104 (5), pp.1911 (1-4). ⟨10.1063/1.4864096⟩. ⟨hal-00950526⟩