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This video was recorded at Kolokviji na Institutu "Jožef Stefan". Topological soft matter is a specific matter where stable or metastable defects in orientational molecular ordering crucially determine its structure. The stabilization of complex topological defects including knotted ordering fields is realized by a balance of conflicting effects like confinement, external fields, and/or intrinsic chirality. Typical examples are liquid crystalline phases in complex geometries, colloids, and composites. They are characterized by high susceptibility to external stimuli, easy directed assembly, robust structures, and simple tuning of physical properties that make them potentially useful for applications in optics, photonics, plasmonics, sensorics, and related technologies. In the talk we will introduce topological soft matter and present some of our recent achievements resulting from the synergy of experimental, numerical and theoretical approaches.

Disciplines:

• Science and Technology  / Physics