Annihilation of point defect pairs in freely suspended liquid-crystal films

Annihilation of point defect pairs in freely suspended liquid-crystal films

Blog Article

We study the annihilation of topological defect pairs in the quasi-two-dimensional geometry of freely suspended smectic films.This elementary process is at the basis of all models describing the statistics of complex defect patterns.We prepare pairs with opposite topological charges and retrieve the interaction mechanisms from their afsm ribbon army trajectories.The square-root dependence of the defect separation on the time until annihilation and the asymmetry in propagation velocities of the opponents predicted by theory are confirmed.

The importance of defect orientations is demonstrated.Trajectories are, in general, curved, depending on the mutual orientations (phase mismatch) sophie allport zebra of the defects and on the orientation of the pair respective to the far, undisturbed director.The experiments provide the basis for an adaption of the theoretical models to the real complexity of the annihilation.