On dislocations in cholesteric liquid crystals

Abstract

The coarse-grained approxmation has been used to work out the structure and properties of dislocations in cholesteric liquid crystals. In this model, edge dislocations are like smectic A edge dislocations while screw dislocations are like nematic wedge disclinations. Thus, it turns out that as regards their energies, interactions, and slow motions, the two types dilocations behave differently.