Por Slobodan Žumer (University of Ljubljana and Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia).
Abstract: Frustrated nematogenic complex fluids in their orientational order-parameter fields exhibit stable and metastable point defects, disclination lines, and solitons. In such a topological soft matter, frustrations are realized by conflicting influences of confining geometries, surface anchoring, external fields, chirality and elasticity. Basic concepts and approaches needed to deal with topological soft matter will be given. The synergy of numerical modeling and experiments will be illustrated with two examples: i) In confined blue phases, detection of skyrmion lattices and individual skyrmions will be described; ii) In nematic colloids formation of disclination braids with knots and links and chiral solitonic deformations will be discussed. The potential of topological matter for applications in soft matter photonics and sensorics will be stressed.
