Morphogenesis of defects and tactoids during isotropic-nematic phase transition in self-assembled lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals

We explore the structure of nuclei and topological defects in the first-order phase transition between the nematic (N) and isotropic (I) phases in lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs). The LCLCs are formed by self-assembled molecular aggregates of various lengths and show a broad biphasic region. The defects emerge as a result of two mechanisms: (1) surface-anisotropy that endows each N nucleus ('tactoid') with topological defects thanks to preferential (tangential) orientation of the director at the closed I-N interface, and (2) Kibble mechanism with defects forming when differently oriented N tactoids merge with each other. Different scenarios of phase transition involve positive (N-in-I) and negative (I-in-N) tactoids with nontrivial topology of the director field and also multiply connected tactoid-in-tactoid configurations. The closed I-N interface limiting a tactoid shows a certain number of cusps; the lips of the interface on the opposite sides of the cusp make an angle different from pi. The N side of each cusp contains a point defect-boojum. The number of cusps shows how many times the director becomes perpendicular to the I-N interface when one circumnavigates the closed boundary of the tactoid. We derive conservation laws that connect the number of cusps c to the topological strength m of defects in the N part of the simply connected and multiply connected tactoids. We demonstrate how the elastic anisotropy of the N phase results in non-circular shape of the disclination cores. A generalized Wulff construction is used to derive the shape of I and N tactoids as a function of I-N interfacial tension anisotropy in the approximation of frozen director field of various topological charges m. The complex shapes and structures of tactoids and topological defects demonstrate an important role of surface anisotropy in morphogenesis of phase transitions in liquid crystals.