Perturbed hedgehogs: continuous deformation of point defects in biaxial nematic liquid crystals
نویسنده
چکیده
The term liquid crystal describes a fluid in which geometrical structure of individual molecules can induce a tendency to align in certain ways with other molecules or with external magnetic or electric fields or with container boundaries. The degree and nature of molecular alignment strongly influences the optical properties of the liquid crystal, a phenomenon that lies at the heart of the currently ubiquitous liquid crystal display technology. For an overview of liquid crystals see [8],[9],[10],[27] or for more technical theoretical and mathematical background see [7],[24],[25] as well as the excellent survey [20].
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