Uniaxial versus Biaxial Pathways in One-Dimensional Cholesteric Liquid Crystals

TL;DR

This paper investigates the transition pathways in one-dimensional cholesteric liquid crystals, revealing distinct uniaxial and biaxial routes and characterizing the solution landscape's saddle points using a quasi-one-dimensional model.

Contribution

It introduces a model distinguishing uniaxial and biaxial transition pathways and characterizes the solution landscape of metastable states in cholesteric liquid crystals.

Findings

Distinct uniaxial and biaxial transition pathways identified.

Transition states involve splay-mediated untwisting or biaxiality.

A variety of saddle points shape the solution landscape.

Abstract

Cholesteric liquid crystals exhibit great morphological richness of static metastable states. Understanding the transitions between such states is key for the development of switchable devices. We show, using a quasi-one-dimensional model, that cholesterics exhibit distinct uniaxial and biaxial pathways between distinct minima. We study transitions between different layer numbers and prove, and show, that transition states are distinguished either through splay-mediated untwisting, understood through contact topology, or the presence of biaxiality. Furthermore we characterise a menagerie of additional saddle points that dictate the connectivity of the solution landscape.