Disclination-mediated thermo-optical response in nematic glass sheets

Abstract

Nematic solids respond strongly to changes in ambient heat or light, significantly differently parallel and perpendicular to the director. This phenomenon is well characterized for uniform director fields, but not for defect textures. We analyze the elastic ground states of a nematic glass in the membrane approximation as a function of temperature for some disclination defects with an eye towards reversibly inducing three-dimensional shapes from flat sheets of material, at the nano-scale all the way to macroscopic objects, including non-developable surfaces. The latter offers a new paradigm to actuation via switchable stretch in thin systems.