Citation:
New Journal of Physics, Volume 21, March 2019
ISSN:
1367-2630
DOI:
10.1088/1367-2630/ab060b
xmlui.dri2xhtml.METS-1.0.item-contributor-funder:
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (España)
Sponsor:
Financial support under grants FIS2015-66523-P and FIS2017-86007-C3-1-P from Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO) of Spain is acknowledged. This publication was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the University of Bayreuth in the funding programme Open Access Publishing.
Project:
Gobierno de España. FIS2015-66523-P Gobierno de España. FIS2017-86007-C3-1-P
We analyse liquid-crystalline ordering in vertically vibrated monolayers of cylinders confined in a circular cavity. Short cylinders form tetratic arrangements with C-4 symmetry. This symmetry, which is incompatible with the geometry of the cavity, is restoredWe analyse liquid-crystalline ordering in vertically vibrated monolayers of cylinders confined in a circular cavity. Short cylinders form tetratic arrangements with C-4 symmetry. This symmetry, which is incompatible with the geometry of the cavity, is restored by the presence of four point defects with total topological charge +4. Equilibrium Monte Carlo simulations predict the same structure. A new method to measure the elastic properties of the tetratic medium is developed which exploits the clear similarities between the vibrated dissipative system and the thermal equilibrium system. Our observations open up a new avenue to investigate the formation of defects in response to boundary conditions, an issue which is very difficult to realise in colloidal or molecular systems.[+][-]