Title: Controlling motile disclinations in a thick nematogenic material with an electric field,
Abstract: Manipulating topological disclination networks that arise in a
symmetry-breaking phase transfor- mation in widely varied systems including
anisotropic materials can potentially lead to the design of novel materials
like conductive microwires, self-assembled resonators, and active anisotropic
matter. However, progress in this direction is hindered by a lack of control of
the kinetics and microstructure due to inherent complexity arising from
competing energy and topology. We have studied thermal and electrokinetic
effects on disclinations in a three-dimensional nonabsorbing nematic material
with a positive and negative sign of the dielectric anisotropy. The electric
flux lines are highly non-uniform in uniaxial media after an electric field
below the Fréedericksz threshold is switched on, and the kinetics of the
disclination lines is slowed down. In biaxial media, depending on the sign of
the dielectric anisotropy, apart from the slowing down of the disclination
kinetics, a non-uniform electric field filters out disclinations of different
topology by inducing a kinetic asymmetry. These results enhance the current
understanding of forced disclination networks and establish the pre- sented
method, which we call fluctuating electronematics, as a potentially useful tool
for designing materials with novel properties in silico.