Elastic constants and the formation of topological defects in hybrid nematic cells: A Monte Carlo study

Phys Rev E. 2020 Oct;102(4-1):042702. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.102.042702.

Abstract

We present a Monte Carlo study of the effects of elastic anisotropy on the topological defects which can be formed in nematic films with hybrid boundary conditions. We simulate the polarized microscopy images and analyze their evolution in uniaxial systems for different values of the Frank elastic constants.