Solitons in Liquid Crystals

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • L. Lam, J. Prost

   Pages 1-8

3. Solitons and Field Induced Solitons in Liquid Crystals

   • L. Lam

   Pages 9-50

4. Solitons in Shearing Liquid Crystals

   • L. Lam, C. Q. Shu

   Pages 51-109

5. Some Nonlinear Problems in Anisotropic Systems

   • P. E. Cladis, W. van Saarloos

   Pages 110-150

6. Solitary Waves in Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals

   • J. E. Maclennan, N. A. Clark, M. A. Handschy

   Pages 151-190

7. Frustrated Smectics

   • P. Barois, J. Pommier, J. Prost

   Pages 191-234

8. Soft Walls and Orientational Singularities in Two-Dimensional Liquid Crystal Films

   • R. Pindak

   Pages 235-252

9. Charged Twist Walls in Nematic Liquid Crystals

   • N. V. Madhusudana, J. F. Palierne, Ph. Martinot-Lagarde, G. Durand

   Pages 253-263

10. Localized Instabilities in the Convection of Nematic Liquid Crystals

    • R. Ribotta

    Pages 264-292

11. Solitons and Commensurate-Incommensurate Phase Transitions in Ferroelectric Smectics

    • M. Yamashita

    Pages 293-325

12. Back Matter

    Pages 326-338

    PDF

Solitons are a well-known and intriguing aspect of nonlinear behavior in a continuous system such as a fluid: a wave propagates through the medium without distortion. Liquid crystals are highly ordered systems without a rigid, long-range structure. Solitons in liquid crystals (sometimes referred to as "walls") have a wide variety of remarkable properties that are becoming important for practical applications such as electroluminescent display. This book, the first review of the subject to be published, contains not only surveys of the existing literature, but presents new results as well.

• computer simulation
• crystal
• metastable
• numerical method
• phase transition
• scattering
• topology

• Department of Physics, San Jose State University, San Jose, USA

  Lui Lam

• École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles, Paris Cedex 05, France

  Jacques Prost

Policies and ethics