We investigate topological states of matter in a system with injection and dissipation of energy. In an experiment involving a liquid crystal cell under the influence of a low frequency oscillatory electric field, we observe a transition from no vortex state to a state in which vortices persist. Depending on the period and the type of the forcing, the vortices self-organize forming square lattices, glassy states, and disordered vortex structures. Our results show that the matter maintained out of equilibrium by means of the temporal modulation of parameters can exhibit exotic states at room temperature.
We investigate a vortex triplet induced by the combination of an electric and magnetic field onto a homeotropic nematic liquid crystal cell. The electric and magnetic fields are generated by two parallel electrodes and a magnetic ring, respectively. The vortex triplet remains stable and trapped at the center of the magnetic ring. Based on forcing the Ginzburg-Landau equation, valid close to the re-orientational transition, allow us to establish the origin of the vortex triplet. Numerical simulations show a quite fair agreement with theoretical findings and experimental observations.
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