Silica microspheres in liquid crystals offer the possibility of creating every knot conceivable
Friday, August 19, 2011 - 04:31
in Physics & Chemistry
Knots can now be tied systematically in the microscopic world. A team of scientists led by Uros Tkalec from the Jozef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana (Slovenia), who has been working at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Gottingen (Germany) since September 2010, has now found a way to create every imaginable knot inside a liquid crystal. Starting points of the new method are tiny silica microspheres confined in thin liquid crystal layers. Surrounding these microspheres, a net of fine lines is formed where the molecular orientation of the liquid crystal is altered. The researchers discovered a method to twist and link these lines in such a manner as to create every knot imaginable.