9th Italian-Japanese Workshop on Liquid Crystals and 13th National SICL Meeting

Within the framework of Oseen-Frank theory , we study spherulites in confined chiral liquid crystals. In particular, we perform numerical calculations for localised axisymmetric states raising when weak homeotropic anchoring is present on two parallel boundary planes. These solutions describe 3-dimensional distortions, which have been observed experimentally in these systems. We outline relations with certain nonlinear integrable equations and use them to study asymptotic behaviors of the solutions. We build analytical approximated solutions of the equilibrium equations and analyse the generation and stabilization of these states, in relation to material parameters, external fields and anchoring boundary conditions.