Suspended,one-side anchored,or double-side anchored nematic droplets in an isotropic medium

Nematic droplets in an isotropic liquid crystal provide an interesting geometrical environment for director alignment, depending on the type of surface used. We prepared three types of substrates with nematic-philic, nematic-phobic, and neutral surfaces. By choosing the proper surface type, we were able to selectively produce three types of droplets (suspended, one-side anchored, and double-side anchored) near the phase transition temperature. These droplets exhibited single-polar or bipolar defects depending on the anchoring status. The one-side anchored and the suspended droplets underwent anchoring transitions in one-step and in two-steps processes on cooling, respectively. A hybrid cell with two types of substrates exhibited a truncated cone-shaped droplet, and two nearby cone-shaped droplets produced a stable doule-curved surface geometry with a saddle point of – 1 defect between isotropic-nematic boundaries. The mergence of these droplets was also investigated.