Defect Induced Buckling in Free Standing Smectic Membranes

DA VEGA; PEZZUTTI A; GARCIA NA; MATSUMOTO E; DAVIS R; REGISTER RA; CHAIKIN PM

Córdoba

Workshop; XIII Latin American Workshop on Nonlinear Phenomena; 2013

LAWNP

During the last years there has been an increasing interest in the study of two-dimensional (2D)textures on non-Euclidean space [Kamien, Rev. Mod. Phys. 74, 953 (2002); Irvine, Vitelli, andChaikin, Nature 468, 947 (2010).]. One of the main dierences between planar and curved 2Dmodulatedphases is related to the structure of topological defects. While in most at systemsthe defects are nontrivial excitations of the ground state, in the case of curved crystals longrangeinteractions can lead to complex arrays of defects strongly coupled to the geometry. Herewe study the coupling between geometry and defects in free standing membranes with smecticsymmetry. We analyze experimentally the conformation of free standing cylinder forming blockcopolymer thin lms and found that the geometry is linked with the elastic distortions producedby the disclinations present in the texture. The membrane congurations are compared withthose resulting from a phase eld model that combines a classical Brazovskii Hamiltonian forthe liquid-crystalline phase and a Helfrich-Canham model for the uid membrane.