Fig. 1.

Morphology of $+1/2$ defects. (A) Illustration of splay and bend distortion in nematic LC. (B) The director fields of $+1/2$ and $-1/2$ defect under one-elastic-constant approximation. The color indicates the difference in splay and bend energy density; $a$ is the unit length scale. (C) Quantitative description of defect morphology: $\varphi$ is the polar coordinate; $\theta$ is the angle between the director and the angular vector $\widehat{\varphi }$. (D) The morphology of $+1/2$ defects as a function of elastic constant ratio $\kappa \equiv K_{33}/K_{11}$. Right images are the Q-tensor–based simulation results. Blue curves following the local director field are added to guide the eye.