Topological defects in nematic liquid crystals are ubiquitous. The defects are important in understanding the fundamental properties of the systems, as well as in practical applications, such as colloidal self-assembly, optical vortex generation and templates for molecular self-assembly. Usually, spatially and temporally stable defects require geometrical frustration imposed by surfaces; otherwise, the system relaxes because of the high cost of the elastic energy. So far, multiple defects are kept in bulk nematic liquid crystals by top-down lithographic techniques. In this work, we stabilize a large number of umbilical defects by doping with an ionic impurity. This method does not require pre-patterned surfaces. We demonstrate that molecular reorientation controlled by an AC voltage induces periodic density modulation of ions accumulated at an electrically insulating polymer interface, resulting in self-organization of a two-dimensional square array of umbilical defects that is reconfigurable and tunable.

To demonstrate coupling between orientation and flow fluctuations in a nematic liquid crystal at equilibrium, we simultaneously observe the intensity change due to director fluctuations under a polarizing microscope and the Brownian motion of a fluorescent particle trapped weakly by optical tweezers. The calculated cross-correlation function of the particle position and the spatial gradient of the intensity is nonzero, clearly indicating the existence of coupling.

Electrokinetics of small particles immersed in anisotropic fluids is attracting attention in recent years. Here we focus on microscopic appearance of single as well as self-assembled particles moving in the electrohydrodynamic convection (EHC) of a nematic liquid crystal with low-birefringence. Characterization of the birefringent properties is made by polarized light microscopy under different illumination conditions. Because of the small optical anisotropy, the director distortion around the particles clearly exhibits distinctive colors on both sides depending on the height in the cell. The observation can be explained as the change in the net phase retardation of the light. It is also found that a caterpillar-like motion is possible by tuning temperature, although the horizontal size of the EHC rolls is relatively narrow.