Abstract
A theory of fracture in spatially varying anisotropic glass is developed to interpret electron micrographs of freeze-fractured surfaces of cholesteric samples. The expression for energy per unit area released by crack formation is , where is the traceless Landau tensor for unit order parameter and is a unit vector normal to the crack surface. The two parameters of the theory are , which is a function of the ratio of length to width of molecule, and a crack-precursor length. Contours closely matching those observed in the laminar cholesteric texture and in blue phase I are generated.
- Received 17 July 1986
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.57.1737
©1986 American Physical Society