Issue |
EPL
Volume 99, Number 3, August 2012
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 38005 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Interdisciplinary Physics and Related Areas of Science and Technology | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/99/38005 | |
Published online | 08 August 2012 |
Director field in plastic crystals
Institut für Theoretische Physik II: Weiche Materie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf Universitätsstraße 1, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany, EU
(a) pcremer@thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de
Received: 14 May 2012
Accepted: 9 July 2012
The director field in a plastic crystal is calculated by particle-resolved Monte Carlo computer simulations of two-dimensional, slightly anisometric hard spherocylinders exposed to an external periodic substrate potential. We investigate the structure of the director field in the Wigner-Seitz cell and find a topological defect structure that can be controlled with the substrate potential. At zero potential we find a charge −1/2 defect at the corners besides the expected defect in the centre with unit topological charge. When switching the substrate potential on, the corner defects are surrounded by three satellite defects which bear charge −1/2, too. Additionally, we then find two charge +1/2 defects on each edge of the unit cell. Finally, within a simplified model, we obtain a qualitative explanation for this defect structure. Our predictions can in principle be verified by using particle-resolved experiments of colloidal plastic crystals.
PACS: 82.70.Dd – Colloids / 61.30.Jf – Defects in liquid crystals / 61.20.Ja – Computer simulation of liquid structure
© EPLA, 2012
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