Eur. Phys. J. E (2008) 25: 31-37
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2007-10261-9

Regular Article

Different mechanisms of nucleation and self-organization of droplets in ferroelectric smectic membranes

¹ Institute of Solid State Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 142432, Chernogolovka, Moscow district, Russia
² Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal, CNRS, Avenue A. Schweitzer, 33600, Pessac, France
³ Laboratoire de Dynamique et Structure des Matériaux Moléculaires, UMR CNRS 8024, Université de Lille I, 59655, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France

^* e-mail: pauldol@issp.ac.ru

Received: 12 June 2007
Accepted: 20 December 2007
Published online: 11 February 2008

Abstract

New mechanisms of droplet nucleation and self-organization in ferroelectric membranes are described. The droplets may be accompanied by different number of topological defects (zero, one, two) whose location may be on the droplet boundary or in the membrane. Nucleation and self-organization of droplets with total topological charge S = 0 , S = + 1 and S = - 1 were investigated. We found that an S = - 1 topological defect may be the center of both droplet nucleation and chain formation. This mechanism of chaining drastically differs from the droplet self-organization described earlier which is realized by attraction of droplet-defect pairs. Our observations demonstrate new possibilities for manipulating the inclusions and their self-organization in smectic membranes.