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Nematic liquid crystal gyroids as photonic crystals

Jure Aplinc, Mitja timulak, Simon opar & Miha Ravnik

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(2016): Nematic liquid crystal gyroids as photonic crystals, Liquid Crystals, DOI:
10.1080/02678292.2016.1215562

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LIQUID CRYSTALS, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02678292.2016.1215562

INVITED ARTICLE

Nematic liquid crystal gyroids as photonic crystals

Jure Aplinca, Mitja timulaka, Simon opara and Miha Ravnika,b
a
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia; bCondensed Matter Physics Department, Jozef Stefan
Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

We demonstrate nematic and cholesteric liquid crystal (LC) gyroids and show their photonic Received 14 June 2016
properties as photonic crystals by using numerical modelling. The LC gyroids are designed as
KEYWORDS
composite optical materials, where we take one labyrinth of passages to be a solid dielectric, Nematic liquid crystals;
whereas the other (complementing) labyrinth of passages is taken to be filled by chiral or achiral gyroids; photonic crystals;
nematic LC, with the intermediate gyroid surface imposing homeotropic (perpendicular) surface topological defects; chirality
anchoring. The nematic inside the gyroid matrix is shown to exhibit a variety of possible orienta-
tional profiles which are characterised by complex networks of topological defects from ordered,
semi-ordered, to completely disordered. The diversity of possible nematic states is shown to lead to
a rich structure of photonic bands, which can be tuned by the LC volume fraction and the
cholesteric pitch, including control over full direct and indirect band gaps.

1. Introduction elaborately assembled structures.[11] An especially

attractive class of such optical materials are self-
Controlling the flow-of-light at the micro-scale is today
assembled bicontinuous phases, formed spontaneously
one of the major challenges in the optical sciences, with
from organic lipids or diblock copolymers into triply
far-reach applications including optical computing,[1]
periodic surfaces with constant mean curvature, a special
ultrafast dynamics,[2] advanced microscopy,[3] metama-
case of which are the Schwarz P- and D-surfaces and the
terials [4] and photonic crystals.[5] The key challenges in
gyroid.[12,13] The gyroid is unique among the simplest
this advanced light control are how to manipulate light at
minimal surfaces for separating the space into two inter-
wavelength and sub-wavelength length scales and how to
locking spaces with opposite chiralities, which makes it an
achieve the system response at fast and ultrafast time-
interesting template for optically active photonic crystals.
scales. Today, for spatial modulation, the state-of-the-art
The gyroid structure can be found in biological materials,
approaches rely on lithography [6] and self-assembly
such as butterfly wings,[14,15] as well as artificial media,
[7,8] whereas for time modulation, fast and ultra-fast
[16] creating various photonic materials,[1720] tem-
laser pulse modulation is used.[9]
plates, moulds and scaffolds for growth of crystals [21]
Photonic crystals derive their properties from periodic
and microstructured metals.[2224]
structure of their refractive index in 1D, 2D or 3D
Complex materials based on liquid crystalline com-
which can be realised as colloidal crystals, networks of
ponents are recently attracting a lot of attention with
channels such as the Yablonovite model [10] or other

CONTACT Miha Ravnik miha.ravnik@fmf.uni-lj.si Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Condensed Matter
Physics Department, Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 J. APLINC ET AL.
applications far beyond the display technology. Their
softness, responsiveness to various stimuli and possibi-
lity to form complex topological defect structures cre-
ate novel materials such as nematic self-quenched
defect glass,[25] polymer composites,[26] topological
complexes,[27,28] topological colloids,[29] hierarchical
quasicrystalline tilings [30], and 1D, 2D and 3D micro-
and nano-colloidal crystals.[31,32] Further, the topolo-
gical constraints in nematic can give rise to memory
effects [33] and they can condition the valence of
trapping sites in thin nematic shells.[34] Additional
complexity can be imprinted into the nematic orienta-
tional profiles by introducing chirality, i.e. by using
chiral nematic materials, stabilising structures such as
chiral nematic solitons torons [35] and hopfions,[36]
bulk defect knots,[37] escaped defect structures,[38]
cubic blue phases [39] and blue phase defect net-
works.[8]
The variability and complexity of the birefringence
profiles that are stabilised in nematic complex fluids
allow for new manipulation of the flow-of-light in
systems ranging from cholesteric lasers,[40] droplet
resonators,[41] filament wave guides [42] to photoin-
duced dichroism. [43] For example, blue phases and
cholesteric liquid crystals (LCs) have demonstrated the
capability to work as high-efficiency, tunable, paintable
and white lasers [4447] and as tunable photonic crys-
tals.[48,49] Nematic droplets are shown to act as highly
tunable optical resonators,[41] whereas cholesteric dro-
plets are shown to function as 3D omnidirectional
micro-lasers.[50] Low-surface-tension tubular struc-
tures and colloidal assemblies are explored as an excit-
ing route towards soft matter photonics.[51]
To generalise and in view of this special Liquid
Crystals issue, nematic fluids exhibit large and
diverse optical non-linearities suitable for photonic
applications spanning the femtosecondmilliseconds
timescales, and a wide window of spatial scales from
tens of nanometres to tens of micrometres, possibly,
crucially enabling some processes such as tunable
photonic crystals, soft metamaterials and active plas-
monics.[52] Therefore, beyond-the-display LC
science has the potential to challenge the current
state-of-the-art approaches in photonics and com-
plex optics using inherent differentiators of LCs,
including material softness, tunable optical aniso-
tropy, topological material design and strong respon-
siveness to external stimuli such as electric and optic
fields. And the demonstrated work is an attempt in
this direction.
In this paper, we explore chiral and achiral nematic
gyroids as photonic crystals using mesoscopic free
energy minimisation to determine the nematic
orientational profiles and eigen-problem Bloch-type
solving of wave equation to calculate the photonics
bands. Orientational ordering of nematic and chiral
nematic (cholesteric) within gyroid-shaped matrix is
demonstrated, finding a variety of structures that are
characterised by a network of nematic disclinations of
continuously varying cross sections from 1=2
twisted to 1=2. Regimes of energetically favourable
regular, semi-regular or irregular defect network con-
formations are observed, strongly depending on the
value of cholesteric pitch and the LC volume fraction,
i.e. effectively the width of the channels in the gyroid
matrix. The performance of these structures as photo-
nic crystals is explored by calculating the photonic
bands, specifically focusing on the characteristics of
(full and partial) band gaps. By varying the cholesteric
pitch, we show that it is possible to change the optical
response of the material, i.e. to tune band gaps for
either left or right circular polarisation of incident
light in specific directions or omnidirectional. Also in
combination with different nematic volume fractions,
we are able to tune photonic bands over large area of
optical frequencies. Finally, more generally, the
demonstrated work is an attempt towards the possible
next generation of LC science and applications based
on combining complex structures of LC order and the
flow-of-light.
2. Theory and modelling
Nematic gyroids are designed as composite material
(see Figure 1), where one labyrinth of passages is
taken as a rigid dielectric whereas the second is taken
to be filled by the nematic LC. To account for this
complex material design, we use our knowledge on
nematic ordering within complex geometries
[28,53,54] and combine it with approaches for model-
ling of photonic eigenmodes (i.e. photonic bands) in
general periodic birefringent materials.[48,49] In this
work, we focus on order-of-magnitude submicron
length scales of the gyroid matrix, which are in the
range of applicability for optical frequencies and that
can be produced, e.g. by using butterfly wings as a
template [16] or by using a block copolymer scaffold
[24] with the review given in Ref. [20] In the demon-
strated design, nematic gyroids as photonic crystals will
be governed by a combination of (1) 3D gyroid geo-
metry of the optically isotropic dielectric and (2) the
complex 3D birefringent profile of the nematic within
the template-complementing cavities and channels.
In the two following subsections, we give basic
descriptions of the two modelling approaches used in
this work. First approach is based on free energy

Figure 1. (Colour online) Gyroid dielectric matrix (template) with various free volume fraction. Gyroid triply periodic surface divides
space into two path-connected regions: the first path-connected region (shown in yellow) will be taken as solid and optically
isotropic dielectric, whereas the second region (empty space) will be filled by nematic and chiral nematic liquid crystal. By changing
the volume fraction of liquid crystal filled region, effectively, the width of gyroid channel network is continuously varied. 2  2  2
unit cells are shown.
minimisation and is used to calculate nematic/choles-
teric profiles i.e. optical birefringence under the
strong and complex 3D confinement of the gyroid
surface. And the second approach is used to calculate
photonic eigenmodes in the nematic gyroids solving
the stationary wave equation by generalised Bloch
formalism.
2.1. Free energy minimisation for nematic gyroid
structure calculations
A strong method for studies of nematic structures is
the Landaude Gennes (LdG) free energy approach.
[55] It is based on the full tensorial order parameter
field Qij , which incorporates the orientation of the
director n, orientation of the possible biaxial ordering
relative to the director, scalar degree of order S and
biaxiality P. LdG modelling is a phenomenological
approach which uses a tensor order parameter to con-
struct a free energy functional F, which is also able to
fully characterise the defect regions. The interest of this
study is to explore the effects of nematic chirality (in
also the chiral confinement of the gyroids) and less
elastic anisotropy; therefore, we use one elastic con-
stant approximation for the LdG free energy, which
reads
 
A B C 2
F Qij Qji Qij Qjk Qki Qij Qji dV
LC 2 3 4
 
L @Qij @Qij @Qlj
2q0 Likl Qij dV
LC 2 @xk @xk @xk
   
W 0 0 volumes of the nematic filled region. Periodic
Qij  Qij Qij  Qij dS;
Surf 2
(1)
where LC denotes the integration over the bulk of the
LC and Surf over the surface of the gyroid matrix. The
first term accounts for the variation of the nematic
LIQUID CRYSTALS 3
degree of order; A, B and C are material parameters.
The second term penalises elastic distortions from the
twisted cholesteric state with a single uniform helical
axis, characterised by the pitch p0 . L is the elastic
constant and q0 2=p0 is the inverse of the pitch
p0 . It is useful to present the pitch in units of the gyroid
matrix unit cell size a as N a=p0 , where N corre-
sponds to the number of 2 turns the director would
make in a non-confined cholesteric along the distance
equal to the gyroid unit cell size. The final term in F
accounts for the LC interaction with the surface of the
gyroid matrix,[56] where W is the anchoring strength
and we assume homeotropic (perpendicular) anchoring
over all surface of the gyroid matrix. The total free
energy F is minimised numerically by using an explicit
Euler relaxation finite difference scheme on a cubic
mesh.[54]
The surface of the gyroid matrix is a triply periodic
minimal surface and can be trigonometrically deter-
mined within the basic Fourier mode by the equation
[57,58]:
singx cosgy singy cosgz
singz cosgx
h; (2)
where g = 2/a characterises the size of the gyroid
unit cell, x, y, z are Cartesian coordinates and para-
meter h determines the volume fraction of the
nematic-filled gyroid region (relative to the
whole gyroid unit cell size). We determine the rela-
tion between h and by numerically integrating the
boundary conditions are used at all boundaries of
the simulation box. To assure sufficient resolution
of the gyroid matrix surfaces, we take 101 mesh
points per gyroid unit cell, whereas the calculations
are performed in a simulation box of size 2  2  2
gyroid unit cells. Taking simulation box with
4 J. APLINC ET AL.
multiple unit cells leads to formation of differently
periodic nematic profiles (in comparison to the per-
iodicity of the gyroid matrix) within the same simu-
lation box which allows for simple testing if the
nematic in some regime of material and system
parameters is likely to form irregular metastable
solutions (defect profiles) that are not periodic
despite the periodic gyroid matrix.
The nematic profiles within the gyroid matrix con-
finement are analysed by drawing the director field,
nematic degree of order S and also the less well-
known splay-bend parameter SSB .[59] The splay-bend
parameter SSB is extracted from the order parameter
tensor field and is capable of visualising the local pro-
file of the nematic director along the nematic defect
lines. Specifically, it determines the amount of the splay
and bend deformations as a sum of the second deriva-
tives of the order parameter tensor Qij
@ 2 Qij
SSB (3)
@xi @xj
Drawing the negative- or positive-value isosurfaces of
the splay-bend parameter then shows the defect
structure.
Material parameters of typical nematic and choles-
teric LC are used in the calculations: L 4  1011 N,
A 0:172  106 J m3 , B 2:12  106 J m3 , C
1:73  106 J m3 and the strength of the homeotropic
anchoring at the gyroid matrix W 102 J m2 . The
anchoring strength corresponds to the regime of strong
anchoring for which disclination lines keep away from
the surfaces (typical values are in the range of
W,104  106 J m2 ). The value of the elastic con-
stant is chosen to allow for more effective modelling of
topological defects, giving a nematic correlation length
of ,6 nm. While the calculation is done for a specific
choice of material parameters, the calculated nematic
textures are quite robust for a broad range of constants,
i.e. showing no major qualitative changes upon the
change of material parameters, as long as disclination
lines remain more stable than point defects, anchoring
regime does not change, and the pitch-to-length scale
remains constant. The used parameter values were
regularly shown to give good qualitative agreement
when comparing numerical modelling with experi-
ments using standard LC materials, such as 5CB and
DMOAP covered surfaces.[28,31]
2.2. Photonic band calculations
Photonic crystals are characterised by periodic spatial
variation of refractive index i.e. having a unit cell size.
Typically, the periodicity of the refractive index is of the
same order of magnitude as wavelength of visible light.
Light propagation in photonic crystals is solved by using
the classical electromagnetic theory, in analogous way as
solving electron bands in solid state (semi-) conductors.
For our nematic and chiral nematic gyroid systems, one
can assume that the structures are stable in time, that
there is no charge ( 0), no current (j 0) and we
also assume that the LC and gyroid matrix are magne-
 
tically isotropic 1 . We also assume linear
response of the material, giving linear relations between
the applied electric and magnetic field Er; t and
Hr; t, and the response of the material D o E,
B 0 H. Further, we assume no absorption losses of
the material, which gives us real, symmetric and positive
definite dielectric tensor r. And lastly, we will be
interested in the photonic response at primarily optical
frequencies, also taking the dielectric function not to
depend on the frequency of applied electric field.
Considering above assumptions and separating
space and time variable by taking Er; t Ereit ,
Hr; t Hreit , we can write Maxwell equations as
 E  i0 H 0;  H  i0 E 0; (4)
 
 H 0;  0 E 0; (5)
where is the frequency of light, 0 is the vacuum
permittivity, 0 is the vacuum permeability and is the
vector differential operator (which we take in the
Cartesian coordinate frame). Following classical refer-
ences, we rewrite the above equation into an eigenvalue
problem:
n o 2
 1  H H k20 H; (6)
c
where k0 =c and c is the speed of light.
Periodic structure of the nematic gyroid structure
then allows for application of the BlochFloquet
theorem and plane wave expansion of the fields
and the dielectric permittivity tensor. Eigenmodes
are computed by preconditioned conjugate-gradient
minimisation, using a freely available software pack-
age [60] with our custom extension for materials
with spatially varying optical axis. As the solution,
we get a decomposition of the electromagnetic fields
into a basis set of local eigenmodes for specific wave
vector k. Eigenvectors or modes of this eigenvalue
problem are optical waves propagating through
photonic medium and eigenvalues are frequencies
of the corresponding mode. Group of eigenvalues
calculated along the edge of the irreducible

Brillouin zone form the diagram of optical bands,
which is typically the basic approach for describing
optical properties of photonic crystals. An important
element in photonic band diagrams is (local or total)
band gaps, i.e. frequencies of light which can not
propagate in the medium. The optical bands are
typically calculated for primitive unit cells of the
periodic material, following a distinct path through
the Brillouin zone. Specifically, gyroids have a body
centred cubic unit cell.[61]
Photonic crystals from nematic gyroids can differ in
the profile of the dielectric permittivity tensor r,
which is directly related to the nematic order para-
meter tensor Qij as:
2o e 2 ridge) favours the 1=2 local structure of the
ij r ij e  o Qij r; (7) disclination.
3 3
where o and e represent ordinary and extraordinary
dielectric constants; unless stated otherwise, we
p
assume values of dielectric constants no o 1:4
p
and ne o 1:8 for all our further discussion,
assuming a quite high birefringence of ne  no 0:4
to make the features of photonic bands more pro-
nounced. However, actually, such birefringence is
experimentally achievable in multiple LC com-
pounds.[62,63] Note that, the first part is just an
average of dielectric constants and second anisotro-
pic part characterises rotation of optical axis and
depends on the birefringence of the LC. Indeed, the
optically isotropic gyroid, i.e. gyroid matrix infiltrated
with air or some other dielectric, can be fully
described by using only scalar spatially varying dielec-
tric constant, and only after filling of the gyroid
matrix with LCs, the birefringence becomes an impor-
tant phenomenon for tuning the optical and photonic
properties.
3. Results
3.1. Nematic LC gyroids
Nematic LC gyroids are designed as composite materi-
als, where the first gyroid region is taken as a solid
matrix of isotropic dielectric, whereas the second is filled
by (first, achiral) nematic LC. Nematic gyroid with
volume fraction of LC region 0:51 is shown in
Figure 2(ac). The combination of complex gyroid con-
finement and homeotropic anchoring at the surfaces
results in the emergence of various nematic profiles
within the gyroid cavities, characterised by complex net-
works of topological defect lines. Multiple network con-
formations are obtained under the confinement of the
same gyroid matrix, revealing the existence of multiple
LIQUID CRYSTALS 5
nematic (meta)stable states. In order to resolve the
structure in more detail, an exemplary nematic gyroid
structure is replotted in Figure 2, using the splay-bend
parameter. Additionally, we also show the director field
in selected cross sections (Figure 2(c)). The director and
splay-bend profiles show that the defect lines in the
gyroid structure are of hybrid nature, changing their
local structure from 1=2 winding number, via twisted,
to 1=2 winding number. The local structure of the
disclination is observed to be strongly coupled to the
local curvature of the nearest gyroid matrix surface,
where positive curvature (effectively a local dip in the
surface) favours the +1/2 local structure of the disclina-
tion, whereas negative curvature (effectively, a local
Nematic gyroids of different nematic volume frac-
tion are shown in Figure 2(d). The volume fraction
effectively going from thin nematic-filled channel-like
regions at small to thick nematic-filled regions at
large strongly affects the morphology of the dis-
clination network and more broadly, the general orien-
tational ordering of the nematic. At small volume
fractions , the role of periodic confining surfaces is
more pronounced and the nematic profiles are regular,
typically forming a distinct structure, which follows the
periodicity of the gyroid matrix (see 0:08 in
Figure 2(d)). However, upon increasing the nematic
volume fraction, the defect lines get effectively more
room, more precisely their different motifs become
energetically less costly, and irregular defect networks
emerge. Figure 2(d) shows only selected examples of
one of the structures obtained in calculations at larger
volume fractions.
3.2. Cholesteric LC gyroids
Cholesteric LC gyroids are materials, which are condi-
tioned in addition to the complex gyroid geometry
by an effective competition between two chiralities: the
chirality of the gyroid matrix and the chirality of the
cholesteric LC. Similarly, to the nematic gyroids, cho-
lesteric gyroids also form various structures of the
orientational order, which are characterised by the net-
works of nematic disclination of hybrid type (1=2,
1=2 and twisted), as shown in Figure 3.
Two typical structures of nematic ordering in cho-
lesteric gyroids are shown in Figure 3(a,b). They are
taken at same nematic volume fraction but different
cholesteric pitch N a=p0 , where a is simulation
box size and p0 is the pitch). Notably, this difference
in the pitch leads to either a regular ordered structure
with fully periodic network of disclinations or a totally
6 J. APLINC ET AL.

Figure 2. (Colour online) Nematic liquid crystal gyroids. (a) Various metastable nematic profiles within the gyroid matrix of volume
fraction 0:51(in yellow) as characterised by different morphologies of the nematic disclinations (in red). (b) Selected nematic
gyroid structure visualised by the isosurface of splay-bend parameter (SSB 0:053 in yellow and SSB 0:053 in blue). Observe
the changes in the local profile of the disclinations. (c) Director field in two indicated cross section with the colours of the director
short lines indicating the orientation (red, green, blue corresponding to main three coordinate axes). (d) Nematic gyroid structures
upon increasing the nematic volume fraction . Top and bottom row show same structures at given volume fraction, but from
different view and projection. Irregular defect networks are observed generically in nematic gyroids, except for small volume
fractions (see structure at 0:08). Disclinations are drawn in red as isosurfaces of nematic degree of order S 0:44 in (a,c,d)
and S 0:31 in (b).

irregular network of disclinations. We vary the two
main parameters of the cholesteric gyroid system,
namely the LC volume fraction and the number N
of 2 turns per one gyroid unit cell of size a, construct-
ing the phase diagram shown in Figure 3(c) to char-
acterise the regimes of the defect structures. We split
the phase diagram into three regimes of structures: (1)
ordered where we see only one structure of nematic
ordering characterised by ordered disclination defect
network (despite repeating multiple calculations and
performing multiple quench random initial condition
calculations), (2)semi-ordered where the network is
still rather regular but individual rewirings of defects
occur and (3) disordered where defect network is
irregular and does not show any order. The examples
of structures from the phase diagram are shown in
Figure 3(f,g), with varying cholesteric volume fraction
along the red arrow (N 1 and different ) and
with varying cholesteric pitch along the blue arrow
( 0:32 and different N). Interestingly, we see that
 LIQUID CRYSTALS 7

Figure 3. (Colour online) Cholesteric liquid crystal gyroids. (a,b) Examples of ordered and disordered cholesteric gyroid structure at same
cholesteric volume fraction 0:6 and cholesteric pitch of different handedness, as given by the pitch number N. Selected cross sections
show the corresponding director fields and defects of different local cross section. Colour scale of the director indicates the direction of the
director (red, green and blue represent the orientation along x, y and z). (c) Phase diagram of different cholesteric gyroid defect regimes as
function of cholesteric volume fraction and pitch number N. Pitch N 0 corresponds to achiral nematic shown in Figure 2. (d) Different
energetically metastable rewirings of disclination line segments in the vertexes of the basic unit-elements of the cholesteric gyroid structure.
Encircled parts show that the disclinations can either run straight or twist. (e) Vertexes of the basic unit-elements of the cholesteric gyroid for a
cholesteric with increasing chirality. Higher chirality imposes stronger helical twisting of disclination pairs along the tubes, instead of a single
optional turn seen in (d). (f) Cholesteric gyroid structures upon varying the cholesteric volume fraction at fixed N 1. (g) Cholesteric gyroid
structures upon varying the cholesteric pitch given by pitch number N and fixed cholesteric volume fraction 0:32. Disclinations are
drawn in red as isosurfaces of nematic degree of order S 0:44.
8 J. APLINC ET AL.

the phase diagram shows a notable region of ordered
structures, also at large cholesteric volume fractions, at
negative values of pitch (negative values correspond to
left-handed cholesteric helical ordering), which impor-
tantly relates to the handedness of the gyroid matrix
(according to nomenclature from Ref. [16], our gyroid
matrix is right-handed). The phase diagram region of
ordered structures is then surrounded by semi-ordered
regime of structures which eventually transform into
disordered. We observe also a region in the phase
diagram of positive pitch where semi-ordered struc-
tures emerge. To generalise the structure of the phase
diagram, at small chiral nematic volume fraction, the
strong anchoring at the surfaces of the gyroid matrix
strongly conditions the nematic structure, making it
more ordered, whereas at larger volume fractions only
appropriate chirality of the cholesteric can couple to
the chiral structure of the gyroid matrix, leading to
ordered structures.
The emergence of regular and irregular defect net-
works can be explained by observing the motifs (rewir-
ings) of disclination line segments in the vertexes of the
basic unit-elements of the cholesteric gyroid structure,
as shown in Figure 3(d and e). Effectively, the discussed
nematic gyroid structure can be decomposed into junc-
tions of three tubular channels, with all surfaces impos-
ing homeotropic surface anchoring, where each of the
channels is penetrated by two disclination lines to
compensate for the effectively radial (+1) surface con-
dition. And the disclinations can pass trough the junc-
tion regions differently, possibly leading to different
disclination network morphologies. And it is via ener-
getic cost of the specific rewiring motif, affected by
both the chirality and the effective thickness of the
channels, that defect networks of different level or
order emerge.
3.3. Photonic crystals from LC gyroids
Cholesteric and nematic gyroids are different for their
inherent birefringence, and it is the role of birefrin-
gence in nematic/cholesteric gyroids which we would
like to emphasise in comparison to the photonic
response of isotropic gyroids, i.e. gyroids made from
optically isotropic materials. We first make analysis of
photonic properties of isotropic gyroids, similar to
what has already been studied in Ref. [20] Figure 4(a)
shows photonic band diagram which we calculated for

Figure 4. (Colour online) Isotropic gyroid photonic crystal from silicon gyroid matrix g 11:9 in air b 1. (a) Photonic bands
calculated on the edge of BCC irreducible Brillouin zone for two different volume fractions . (b) Size of the total band gap in
isotropic gyroid as dependent on volume fraction of air region and the dielectric contrast g b . (c,d) Electromagnetic field energy
density (blue) within the 2  2  2 gyroid unit cells (yellow) for bands below (c) and above (d) the total photonic band gap at point
H in the Brillouin zone. The electromagnetic energy is drawn as isosurface of w ED BH 5:2. (e) Size of local band gap for
left circularly polarised light in direction 100 (point H) as function of air volume fraction and dielectric contrast g b .
 LIQUID CRYSTALS 9

two different volume fractions of silicon gyroid matrix
g 11:9 placed in air background b 1. Two typical
photonic crystal characteristics of the gyroid structure
can be seen. First is the circular dichroism in the 100
(point H) direction, where there are different band
gaps for differently circularly polarised light. Gap
between first and fourth band describes left circular
polarisation gap and it is notably larger than the gap
between second and third band, which describes right
circular polarisation.[61] And the second gyroid photo-
nic crystal characteristic is the emergence of the total
band gap as shown in grey in Figure 4(a) for the
volume fraction 0:69. Size of the total band gap
depends both on the dielectric contrast g b between
the two gyroid regions as well as on the relative volume
fraction of the two regions. In Figure 4(b), we show
this dependency more explicitly, calculating the relative
size of the gap =
as a function of volume fraction
and dielectric contrast. Electromagnetic field energy
density w ED BH for states under and above
the photonic gap of left circularly polarised light in
point H and at 0:69 is shown in Figure 4(c,d),
respectively. The energy density w is normalised
according to conditions EDd3 r 1 and BHd3 r 1
where integration is performed over the whole volume.
Local band gap in point H for left circular polarisation
is analysed in Figure 4(e), showing that this gap is a
persistent property of gyroid structure as it opens even
for small dielectric contrast g b <2 and it is present
through large area of volume fractions.
Nematic gyroids are different to isotropic gyroids as
they exhibit distinct spatially dependent and variable
optical anisotropy, which we show can lead to red or
blue shift of the band gap frequency and opens or
closes photonic gaps either for all or only specific
polarisations in the range of =
,1%. To calculate
the nematic gyroid photonic crystal band diagrams, we
use the nematic structure calculated in Sections 3.1 and
3.2 (i.e. the order parameter tensor Qij profiles) and
take it as spatially dependent dielectric permittivity
profile using direct correspondence in Equation 7.
Photonic band diagram calculated for cholesteric gyroid
photonic crystals (with pitch number N 1; exactly
corresponding to structures shown in Figure 3(f)) is
shown in Figure 5(a). They are calculated along the wave-
vector path of the irreducible Brillouin zone of simple cubic
unit cell corresponding to the full simulation box, in order
to account (in the disordered disclination network profiles)
for the variety of the cholesteric profiles of birefringence. As
a consequence, folded bands can emerge in the photonic
band diagram. This is why we only show the first four
bands and bands where total band gap appears in
Figure 5. Figure 5 shows that smaller cholesteric volume

Figure 5. (Colour online) Nematic and cholesteric gyroid photonic crystal response assuming silicon gyroid matrix g 11:9. (a)
Photonic bands calculated at the edge of simple cubic irreducible Brillouin zone of the simulation box for different nematic volume
fractions and liquid crystal with no 1:4 and ne 1:8. Inset below shows local band gap at point X. Above panel is added to the
band diagram to show two photonic bands for each volume fraction between which total band gap appears. Purple stripe shows
total band gap for volume fraction 0:79. (b) Size of local photonic band at point X from (a) for different nematic birefringence
n and ordinary refractive index of nematic no . (c) Photonic bands for different pitch of the cholesteric liquid crystal. Bottom panel
is a zoom on local band gap at point X. The inset in the top panel shows opening and closing of a local band gap as caused by
changing the cholesteric pitch.
10 J. APLINC ET AL.
fraction brings lower frequency of photonic bands which is
in accordance with variational principle.[11] Size of the
band gap also decreases as volume fraction decreases, so
we get the largest local photonic band at point X for largest
volume fraction 0:93.
The effect of birefringence on the local band gap at
direction 100 (X point) is demonstrated for the struc-
ture with volume fraction 0:79 and pitch N 1
in Figure 5(b). Specifically, we vary both the nematic
birefringence n ne  no (no is ordinary and ne is
extraordinary refractive index) as well as the ordinary
refractive index no , effectively setting the dielectric
contrast between the nematic and the gyroid matrix.
We show that larger birefringence increases the local
photonic band gap; however, increasing n at fixed no
also start to lower the contrast between gyroid and LC
phase, thus reducing the gap. To generalise, larger
local band gaps can be achieved by using LC material
with low average refractive index, but with large
birefringence.
Figure 5(c) shows the effect of changing the choles-
teric pitch, using structures shown in Figure 3(g) nota-
bly also including (achiral) nematic. We see that
different pitch not only shifts frequency of the gap
but also changes size of the gap, for example largest
gap is for nematic LC with N 0 and smallest for
N 1. In inset, there is a zoom on point X, for clarity
all bands are shown together. Pitch also affects the total
band gap, specifically it can be seen that for nematic,
we get smallest total gap and it increases for cholesteric
LC, interestingly moving only the upper band while
lower stays the same.
To generalise, chiral and achiral nematic gyroids are
photonic crystals characterised by the distinct profiles
of birefringence, i.e. the structures of the nematic
orientational ordering which we have shown can be
affected and controlled by different material para-
meters, notably including nematic volume fraction or
cholesteric pitch. And it is the tunability of the nematic
birefringence which can lead to controllable shift of the
band gap frequencies as well as opening and closing of
photonic gaps.
4. Conclusions
We have explored chiral and achiral nematic gyroids as
photonic crystals by using numerical modelling. The
LC gyroids are designed as composite materials, where
one gyroid region is taken as a solid matrix of isotropic
dielectric imposing homeotropic anchoring for
nematic, whereas the second is filled by achiral or
chiral nematic LC. The nematic structure within the
gyroid matrix is shown to be characterised by networks
of nematic disclinations of hybrid nature which can
change local structure from 1=2 and 1=2 winding
number to twisted. Achiral nematic gyroid structures
typically exhibit irregular defect network morphologies,
except for small nematic volume fractions, caused by
multiple possible energetically metastable defect line
segment rewirings. However, for chiral nematic gyroids
we find a sizeable phase space region where regular and
ordered defect profiles (networks) are expected to
emerge, as stabilised by the energetically favourable
coupling between the handedness of the gyroid matrix
and the handedness of the cholesteric chiral ordering.
Photonic bands of selected nematic and chiral nematic
structures are calculated. Specifically, the nematic bire-
fringence is showed to allow for controllable shift of
the band gap frequencies, shifts in the band structure as
whole, and opening and closing of photonic band gaps.
Finally, this work is aimed as a contribution to the
development of LC composites as soft photonic mate-
rials that could be used to control the flow-of-light at
the wave-length and sub-wave-length scales.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
Authors acknowledge funding from Slovenian research
agency grants J1-7300 and P1-0099, and USAF EOARD
grant SOFTMETA:[Grant Number FA9550-15-1-0418].
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