Electric field induced inversion of the sign of half-integer disclinations in 2D nematic liquid crystals

Abstract

We study the effect of the rotation of an external electric field on the dynamics of half-integer disclination networks in two dimensional nematic liquid crystals with a negative dielectric anisotropy using LICRA, a LIquid CRystal Algorithm developed by the authors. We show that a rotation of $\pi$ of the electric field around an axis of the liquid crystal plane continuously transforms all half-integer disclinations of the network into disclinations of opposite sign via twist disclinations. We also determine the evolution of the characteristic length scale, thus quantifying the impact of the external electric field on the coarsening of the defect network.