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Continuous generation of topological defects in a passively driven nematic liquid crystal

Synthetic active matter is emerging as the prime route for the realisation of biological mechanisms such as locomotion, active mixing, and self-organisation in soft materials. In particular, passive nematic complex fluids are known to form out-of-equilibrium states with topological defects, but thei...

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Autores principales: Mur, Maruša, Kos, Žiga, Ravnik, Miha, Muševič, Igor
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9652398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36369171
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34384-5
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author Mur, Maruša
Kos, Žiga
Ravnik, Miha
Muševič, Igor
author_facet Mur, Maruša
Kos, Žiga
Ravnik, Miha
Muševič, Igor
author_sort Mur, Maruša
collection PubMed
description Synthetic active matter is emerging as the prime route for the realisation of biological mechanisms such as locomotion, active mixing, and self-organisation in soft materials. In particular, passive nematic complex fluids are known to form out-of-equilibrium states with topological defects, but their locomotion, activation and experimental realization has been developed and understood to only a limited extent. Here, we report that the concentration-driven flow of small molecules triggers turbulent flow in the thin film of a nematic liquid crystal that continuously generates pairs of topological defects with an integer topological charge. The diffusion results in the formation of counter-rotating vortex rolls in the liquid crystal, which above a velocity threshold transform into a turbulent flow with continuous generation and annihilation of the defect pairs. The pairs of defects are created by the self-amplifying splay instability between the vortices, until a pair of oppositely charged defects is formed.
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spelling pubmed-96523982022-11-15 Continuous generation of topological defects in a passively driven nematic liquid crystal Mur, Maruša Kos, Žiga Ravnik, Miha Muševič, Igor Nat Commun Article Synthetic active matter is emerging as the prime route for the realisation of biological mechanisms such as locomotion, active mixing, and self-organisation in soft materials. In particular, passive nematic complex fluids are known to form out-of-equilibrium states with topological defects, but their locomotion, activation and experimental realization has been developed and understood to only a limited extent. Here, we report that the concentration-driven flow of small molecules triggers turbulent flow in the thin film of a nematic liquid crystal that continuously generates pairs of topological defects with an integer topological charge. The diffusion results in the formation of counter-rotating vortex rolls in the liquid crystal, which above a velocity threshold transform into a turbulent flow with continuous generation and annihilation of the defect pairs. The pairs of defects are created by the self-amplifying splay instability between the vortices, until a pair of oppositely charged defects is formed. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-11-11 /pmc/articles/PMC9652398/ /pubmed/36369171 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34384-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Mur, Maruša
Kos, Žiga
Ravnik, Miha
Muševič, Igor
Continuous generation of topological defects in a passively driven nematic liquid crystal
title Continuous generation of topological defects in a passively driven nematic liquid crystal
title_full Continuous generation of topological defects in a passively driven nematic liquid crystal
title_fullStr Continuous generation of topological defects in a passively driven nematic liquid crystal
title_full_unstemmed Continuous generation of topological defects in a passively driven nematic liquid crystal
title_short Continuous generation of topological defects in a passively driven nematic liquid crystal
title_sort continuous generation of topological defects in a passively driven nematic liquid crystal
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9652398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36369171
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34384-5
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