20.500.12556/RUL-124794 Surface stabilized topological solitons in nematic liquid crystals Photo-alignment is a versatile tool to pattern the alignment at the confining substrates in a liquid crystal (LC) cell. Arbitrary alignment patterns can be created by using projection with a spatial light modulator (SLM) for the illumination. We demonstrate that a careful design of the alignment patterns allows the stabilization of topological solitons in nematic liquid crystal (NLC) cells, without the need for chirality or strong confinement. The created LC configurations are stabilized by the anchoring conditions imposed at the substrates. The photo-aligned background at both substrates is uniformly planar aligned, and ring-shaped regions with a 180° azimuthal rotation are patterned with an opposite sense of rotation at the top and bottom substrate. A disclination-free structure containing a closed ring of vertically oriented directors is formed when the patterned rings at the top and bottom substrate overlap. Thanks to the topological stability, a vertical director orientation in the bulk is observed even when the centra of both patterned rings are shifted over relatively large distances. The combination of numerical simulations with experimental measurements allows identification of the 3D director configuration in the bulk. A finite element (FE) Q-tensor simulation model is applied to find the equilibrium director configuration and optical simulations are used to confirm the correspondence with experimental microscopy measurements. The created LC configurations offer opportunities in the field of optical devices, light guiding and switching, particle trapping and studies of topological LC structures. nematic liquid crystals topological solitons optics nematski tekoči kristali topološki solitoni optika true false false Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Neznano 2021-02-18 14:30:57 2021-02-18 14:30:57 2022-09-04 04:01:30 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2020 0 0 17 str. art. no. 840 Vol. 10 Sep. 2020 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 538.9 2073-4352 10.3390/cryst10090840 52294147 36677893 RAZ_Nys_Inge_2020.pdf RAZ_Nys_Inge_2020.pdf 1 A67BC9F9AC6139C341BC1B297921F4F3 1b4453dfd67251c9c0f174e06e312b877b3865d8c4a5939dd8b669c494de6d88 a007b233-a1bb-11eb-a523-00155dcfd717 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=140402 https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4352/10/9/840 1 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=140403 Fakulteta za matematiko in fiziko 0 0 0