Liquid Crystal Colloids (Soft and Biological Matter)

This book brings together the many concepts and discoveries in liquid crystal colloids contributed over the last twenty years and scattered across numerous articles and book chapters. It provides both a historical overview of the development of the field and a clear perspective on the future applications in photonics. 

The book covers all phenomena observed in liquid crystal colloids with an emphasis on experimental tools and applications of topology in condensed matter, as well as practical micro-photonics applications. It includes a number of spectacular manifestations of new topological phenomena not found or difficult to observe in other systems. Starting from the early works on nematic colloids, it explains the basics of topological defects in ordered media, charge and winding, and the elastic forces between colloidal particles in nematics. Following a detailed description of experimental methods, such as optical tweezing and particle tracking, the book eases the reader into the theoretical part, which deals with elastic deformation of nematic liquid crystals due to inclusions and surface alignment. This is discussed in the context of basic mean field Landau-de Gennes Q-tensor theory, with a brief explanation of the free-energy minimization numerical methods. There then follows an excursion into the topology of complex nematic colloidal structures, colloidal entanglement, knotting and linking. Nematic droplets, shells, handlebodies and chiral topological structures are addressed in separate chapters. The book concludes with an extensive chapter on the photonic properties of nematic dispersions, presenting the concept of integrated soft matter photonics and discussing the concepts of nematic and chiral nematic microlasers, surface-sensitive photonic devices and smectic microfibers.

The text is complemented by a large bibliography, explanatory sketches and beautiful micrographs.

Igor Muševič is Professor of Physics at the University of Ljubljana and Jožef Stefan Institute in Slovenia. His research focuses on self-assembly in nematic colloids and is based on tools such as optical tweezers. His group was the first to observe and explain the unusual trapping properties of laser tweezers in nematics and one of his main contributions was the discovery of 2D crystallization of colloidal particles in nematics. He also led the first group to realize a liquid crystal tunable optical microresonator and 3D microlaser. His awards include the National Boris Kidrič prize for patents and technical innovation in 1981 and 1986; the 1993 Republic of Slovenia National Prize; the Glenn Brown award from the International Liquid Crystal Society in 1994; the Zlata plaketa Golden tablet, awarded by the University of Ljubljana in 2002; the National Zois Award in 2004 and 2009; and the Samsung Mid-Career Award in 2008. He serves on the editorial boards of the European Physical Journal E, Liquid Crystals Reviews and Liquid Crystals.