Studies on spontaneous symmetry breaking patterns generated by soft matters and their optical applications

Abstract

Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a fundamental phenomenon that is widely observed in nature. It occurs in diverse scale systems from subatomic particles to the early universe. Understanding spontaneous symmetry breaking is important because it can lead to a deeper understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena. Moreover, it has the potential to accelerate the development of next-generation technologies such as quantum computing, new energy sources based on subatomic particles, and the creation of new materials. However, many of these phenomena occur in systems that are either too small or too large to investigate experimentally. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce mesoscale model system that can accurately replicate these phenomena in a controlled environment. In this thesis, we have proposed analogues for spontaneous symmetry breaking in nature with liquid crystalline materials. We could fabricate diverse symmetry-broken patterns at the micrometer scale with the liquid crystals and extensively investigated these patterns to gain a deeper insight underlying spontaneous symmetry breaking. Furthermore, we presented several practical applications using optical signals generated from these patterns.