Conic sections in ferroelectric nematics: experiments and mathematical modeling

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Kumari, Priyanka, Kurochkin, Olexandr, Nazarenko, Vassili G., Lavrentovich, Oleg D., Golovaty, Dmitry, Sternberg, Peter
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Kumari, Priyanka
Kurochkin, Olexandr
Nazarenko, Vassili G.
Lavrentovich, Oleg D.
Golovaty, Dmitry
Sternberg, Peter
author_facet Kumari, Priyanka
Kurochkin, Olexandr
Nazarenko, Vassili G.
Lavrentovich, Oleg D.
Golovaty, Dmitry
Sternberg, Peter
contents Domain structure of a fluid ferroelectric nematic is dramatically different from the domain structure of solid ferroelectrics since it is not restricted by rectilinear crystallographic axes and planar surface facets. We demonstrate that thin films of a ferroelectric nematic seeded by colloidal inclusions produce domain walls in the shape of conics such as a parabola. These conics reduce the bound charge within the domains and at the domain walls. An adequate description of the domain structures requires one to analyze the electrostatic energy, which is a challenging task. Instead, we demonstrate that a good approximation to the experimentally observed polydomain textures is obtained when the divergence of spontaneous polarization - which causes the bound charge is heavily penalized by assuming that the elastic constant of splay in the Oseen-Frank energy is much larger than those for twist and bend. The model takes advantage of the fact that the polarization vector is essentially parallel to the nematic director throughout the sample.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_12903
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Conic sections in ferroelectric nematics: experiments and mathematical modeling
Kumari, Priyanka
Kurochkin, Olexandr
Nazarenko, Vassili G.
Lavrentovich, Oleg D.
Golovaty, Dmitry
Sternberg, Peter
Soft Condensed Matter
Domain structure of a fluid ferroelectric nematic is dramatically different from the domain structure of solid ferroelectrics since it is not restricted by rectilinear crystallographic axes and planar surface facets. We demonstrate that thin films of a ferroelectric nematic seeded by colloidal inclusions produce domain walls in the shape of conics such as a parabola. These conics reduce the bound charge within the domains and at the domain walls. An adequate description of the domain structures requires one to analyze the electrostatic energy, which is a challenging task. Instead, we demonstrate that a good approximation to the experimentally observed polydomain textures is obtained when the divergence of spontaneous polarization - which causes the bound charge is heavily penalized by assuming that the elastic constant of splay in the Oseen-Frank energy is much larger than those for twist and bend. The model takes advantage of the fact that the polarization vector is essentially parallel to the nematic director throughout the sample.
title Conic sections in ferroelectric nematics: experiments and mathematical modeling
topic Soft Condensed Matter
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.12903