Topological defects in cholesteric liquid crystals induced by monolayer domains with orientational chirality

Abstract

Unless stabilized by colloids or confinement with well-defined boundary conditions, defects in liquid crystals remain elusive short-lived objects that tend to disappear with time to minimize the medium's free energy. In this work we use multimodal three-dimensional imaging to visualize cholesteric director structures to show that self-assembled chiral molecular monolayer domains can stabilize topologically constrained defect configurations when in contact with a cholesteric liquid crystal. The cholesteric liquid crystal, having features of both coarse-grained lamellar and nematic liquid crystal with chiral symmetry breaking, allows us to explore the interplay of chirality and implications of layering on the formed defects and director configurations.