Nanostructure of edge dislocations in a smectic C* liquid crystal

Abstract

We report on the first direct nanoscale imaging of elementary edge dislocations in a thermotropic chiral smectic C liquid crystal with the Burgers vector equal to one smectic layer spacing d. We find two different types of dislocation profiles. In the dislocation of type A, the layers deformations lack mirror symmetry with respect to the plane perpendicular to the Burgers vector; the dislocation core size is on the order of d. In the dislocation of type S, the core is strongly anisotropic, extending along the Burgers vector over distances much larger (by a factor of 4) than d. The difference is attributed to a different orientation of the molecular tilt plane with respect to the dislocation axis; the asymmetric layers distortions are observed when the molecular tilt plane is perpendicular to the axis and the split S core is observed when the molecules are tilted along the line.