3 research outputs found
Dislocation Dynamics in an Anisotropic Stripe Pattern
The dynamics of dislocations confined to grain boundaries in a striped system
are studied using electroconvection in the nematic liquid crystal N4. In
electroconvection, a striped pattern of convection rolls forms for sufficiently
high driving voltages. We consider the case of a rapid change in the voltage
that takes the system from a uniform state to a state consisting of striped
domains with two different wavevectors. The domains are separated by domain
walls along one axis and a grain boundary of dislocations in the perpendicular
direction. The pattern evolves through dislocation motion parallel to the
domain walls. We report on features of the dislocation dynamics. The kinetics
of the domain motion are quantified using three measures: dislocation density,
average domain wall length, and the total domain wall length per area. All
three quantities exhibit behavior consistent with power law evolution in time,
with the defect density decaying as , the average domain wall length
growing as , and the total domain wall length decaying as .
The two different exponents are indicative of the anisotropic growth of domains
in the system.Comment: 8 figures: 7 jpeg and 1 pd
Modulation of Localized States in Electroconvection
We report on the effects of temporal modulation of the driving force on a
particular class of localized states, known as worms, that have been observed
in electroconvection in nematic liquid crystals. The worms consist of the
superposition of traveling waves and have been observed to have unique, small
widths, but to vary in length. The transition from the pure conduction state to
worms occurs via a backward bifurcation. A possible explanation of the
formation of the worms has been given in terms of coupled amplitude equations.
Because the worms consist of the superposition of traveling waves, temporal
modulation of the control parameter is a useful probe of the dynamics of the
system. We observe that temporal modulation increases the average length of the
worms and stabilizes worms below the transition point in the absence of
modulation.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure