Topological order in Chiral Liquid Crystals

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• Ivan Smalyukh (University of Colorado)
• Wednesday 20 August 2025, 09:45-10:30
• Seminar Room 1, Newton Institute.

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DNMW06 - Recent challenges in the mathematical design of new materials

Feynman’s words “What I cannot create, I do not understand” inspire us to use the power of topology and chirality to experimentally re-produce phenomena and “bring to life” theories from diverse fields like particle physics and cosmology. Even physically-sound models that turned out not describing the real World around us can materialize in the artificial “meta-World” table-top experiments that we meticulously design. I will first discuss how vortex knots in chiral liquid crystals can exhibit atom-like behavior, including fusion, fission and self-assembly into various crystals (one example shown on a polarizing optical micrograph to the right) with giant electrostriction properties. These findings will let us admire the beautiful history of the early model of atoms by Lord Kelvin, and the origins of matematical knot theory, as well as the very last poem by Maxwell related to them. I will discuss how the chiral liquid crystalline topological solitons, nonsingular vortex knots and multi-componnt links relate to the modern-day topological models of subatomic particles. Finally, I will show that the vortices (nonsingular disclinations) in chiral liquid crystals interact with light similar to what was predicted for the elusive cosmic strings, with knots and crystalline arrays of vortices allowing to spatially localize beams of light into closed loops and knots.

This talk is part of the Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series series.

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