Points, skyrmions and torons in chiral nematic droplets

Abstract

Chiral nematic droplets with perpendicular surface alignment of liquid crystalline molecules frustrate the helical structure into convoluted 3D textures with complex topology. We observe the droplets with fluorescent confocal polarising microscopy (FCPM), and reconstruct and analyse for the first time the topology of the 3D director field using a novel method of director reconstruction from raw data. We always find an odd number of topological defects, which preserve the total topological charge of the droplet of +1 regardless of chirality. At higher chirality, we observe up to 5 point hedgehog defects, which are elastically stabilized with convoluted twisted structures, reminiscent of 2D skyrmions and toron-like structure, nested into a sphere.