The orientationally dependent elastic energy and hydrodynamic behavior of colloidal disks with homeotropic surface anchoring suspended in the nematic liquid crystal 4-cyano-4${}^{\prime }$-pentylbiphenyl (5CB) have been investigated. In the absence of external torques, the disks align with the normal of the disk face $\widehat{a}$ parallel to the nematic director $\widehat{n}$. When a magnetic field is applied, the disks rotate $\widehat{a}$ by an angle $\theta$ so that the magnetic torque and the elastic torque caused by distortion of the nematic director field are balanced. Over a broad range of angles, the elastic torque increases linearly with $\theta$ in quantitative agreement with a theoretical prediction based on an electrostatic analogy. When the disks are rotated to angles $\theta >\frac{\pi }{2}$, the resulting large elastic distortion makes the disk orientation unstable, and the director undergoes a topological transition in which $\theta \pi -\theta$. In the transition, a defect loop is shed from the disk surface, and the disks spin so that $\widehat{a}$ sweeps through $\pi$ radians as the loop collapses back onto the disk. Additional measurements of the angular relaxation of disks to $\theta =0$ following removal of the external torque show a quasi-exponential time dependence from which an effective drag viscosity for the nematic can be extracted. The scaling of the angular time dependence with disk radius and observations of disks rotating about $\widehat{a}$ indicate that the disk motion affects the director field at surprisingly modest Ericksen numbers.

• Received 20 June 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.86.041702