Visualization, coarsening and flow dynamics of focal conic domains in simulated Smectic-A liquid crystals

TL;DR

This paper develops a numerical theory and visualization tools to study the formation, dynamics, and coarsening of focal conic domains in smectic-A liquid crystals, aligning simulations with experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a new effective theory and visualization methods for focal conic domains, advancing understanding of their dynamics in smectic-A liquid crystals.

Findings

Simulations accurately reproduce focal conic structures.

Visualization tools reveal geometric details of defect structures.

Coarsening dynamics are characterized and compared to experiments.

Abstract

Smectic liquid crystals vividly illustrate the subtle interplay of broken translational and orientational symmetries, by exhibiting defect structures forming geometrically perfect confocal ellipses and hyperbolas. Here, we develop and numerically implement an effective theory to study the dynamics of focal conic domains in smectic-A liquid crystals. We use the information about the smectic's structure and energy density provided by our simulations to develop several novel visualization tools for the focal conics. Our simulations accurately describe both simple and extensional shear, which we compare to experiments, and provide additional insight into the coarsening dynamics of focal conic domains.