Domain growth in cholesteric blue phases: hybrid lattice Boltzmann simulations

TL;DR

This paper reviews a hybrid lattice Boltzmann method for simulating the growth of cholesteric blue phases, revealing how domain structures depend on chirality and enabling large-scale device simulations.

Contribution

Introduces a hybrid lattice Boltzmann algorithm for simulating blue phase domain growth in cholesteric liquid crystals, facilitating large-scale and detailed studies.

Findings

Blue phase II can grow with few defects depending on chirality

Growth results in either BPII or hexagonally ordered structures

Large-scale simulations are feasible with the proposed method

Abstract

Here we review a hybrid lattice Boltzmann algorithm to solve the equations of motion of cholesteric liquid crystals. The method consists in coupling a lattice Boltzmann solver for the Navier-Stokes equation to a finite difference method to solve the dynamical equations governing the evolution of the liquid crystalline order parameter. We apply this method to study the growth of cholesteric blue phase domains, within a cholesteric phase. We focus on the growth of blue phase II and on a thin slab geometry in which the domain wall is flat. Our results show that, depending on the chirality, the growing blue phase is either BPII with no or few defects, or another structure with hexagonal ordering. We hope that our simulations will spur further experimental investigations on quenches in micron-size blue phase samples. The computational size that our hybrid lattice Boltzmann scheme can handle suggest that large scale simulations of new generation of blue phase liquid crystal device are within reach.