Publications Repository - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

We draw a parallel between ferromagnetic materials and nematic liquid crystals
confined on curved surfaces, which are both characterized by local interaction and
anchoring potentials. We show that the extrinsic curvature of the shell combined with
the out-of-plane component of the director field gives rise to chirality effects. This
interplay produces an effective energy term reminiscent of the chiral term in
cholesteric liquid crystals, with the curvature tensor acting as a sort of anisotropic
helicity. We discuss also how the different nature of the order parameter, a vector in
ferromagnets and a tensor in nematics, yields different textures on surfaces with
the same topology as the sphere.