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Liquid crystals

Tangled loops and knots

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Knot-shaped micrometric tubes embedded in a liquid crystal induce the formation of defect lines that loop around the knotted tubes to form knots.

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Figure 1: Defect loops and knot-shaped microparticles.
Figure 2: Defect loops winding around knotted microparticles2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. William T. M. Irvine and Dustin Kleckner are at the James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA,

    William T. M. Irvine & Dustin Kleckner

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  1. William T. M. Irvine
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  2. Dustin Kleckner
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Correspondence to William T. M. Irvine.

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Irvine, W., Kleckner, D. Tangled loops and knots. Nature Mater 13, 229–231 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3896

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