Nematic shells of liquid crystals have been provided in microscales. Defect structures in the shells are very essential in the electro-optical applications of such colloidal objects. We have numerically minimized the free energy of symmetric and asymmetric spherical shells of the nematic liquid crystal. Considering degenerate planar anchoring on the surfaces and isotropic nematic elasticity, a variety of defect structures are observed by controlling or varying the thicknesses of the shell and its degree of asymmetry. In symmetric shells, our calculations show that boojums (bipolar) defects appear in thick shells and tetrahedral (baseball) defects in thin shells. In asymmetric shells, while we are in the bipolar regime, the boojums defects transform to trigonal configurations. Free energy landscape shows that in this regime the inner droplet is not stable in the center and it is trapped in an off-center minimum energy position. For the case of thin shells, there are two degenerate director textures with similar tetrahedral configuration of the disclination lines. The levels are split in asymmetric shells. The stability of the inner droplet in the center position depends on director texture. It is stable for one texture and unstable for the other one. For an unstable pattern there is no minimum energy position for the inner droplet and it moves until it touches the outer boundary.

• Received 22 March 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.88.012508