Ordering dynamics of blue phases entails kinetic stabilization of amorphous networks
arXiv:1006.4340 · doi:10.1073/pnas.1004269107
Abstract
The cubic blue phases of liquid crystals are fascinating and technologically promising examples of hierarchically structured soft materials, comprising ordered networks of defect lines (disclinations) within a liquid crystalline matrix. We present the first large-scale simulations of their domain growth, starting from a blue phase nucleus within a supercooled isotropic or cholesteric background. The nucleated phase is thermodynamically stable; one expects its slow orderly growth, creating a bulk cubic. Instead, we find that the strong propensity to form disclinations drives the rapid disorderly growth of a metastable amorphous defect network. During this process the original nucleus is destroyed; re-emergence of the stable phase may therefore require a second nucleation step. Our findings suggest that blue phases exhibit hierarchical behavior in their ordering dynamics, to match that in their structure.
11 pages, 5 figures, 2 supplementary figures, 2 supplementary tables, accepted by PNAS
References in corpus (3)
Cited by in corpus (20)
- Velocity Correlations in an Active Nematic
- Onset of meso-scale turbulence in living fluids
- Instabilities and Topological Defects in Active Nematics
- On the structure of blue phase III
- Vorticity, Defects and Correlations in Active Turbulence
- Control of pathways and yields of protein crystallization through the interplay of nonspecific and specific attractions
- Active turbulence in active nematics
- Self-assembly of colloid-cholesteric composites provides a possible route to switchable optical materials
- Active nematic materials with substrate friction
- Microfluidic Flow of Cholesteric Liquid Crystals
- Cytoplasmic streaming in plant cells: the role of wall slip
- Driven active and passive nematics
- Rheology of Cubic Blue Phases
- Rheology of Lamellar Liquid Crystals in Two and Three Dimensions: A Simulation Study
- Flexoelectric switching in cholesteric blue phases
- Confined Cubic Blue Phases under Shear
- Topological Phases and Curvature-Driven Pattern Formation in Cholesteric Shells
- Simulating structured fluids with tensorial viscoelasticity
- Shear-enhanced elasticity in the cubic blue phase I
- Active micromachines: Microfluidics powered by mesoscale turbulence