Fig. 1

Liquid crystals on circular posts. a Distorted director field with saddle-splay rich region indicated in red. b Schematic of director reorientation over the top of a post. Liquid crystal is increasingly free to reorient with post height above the surface. c–j Stationary liquid crystal configurations with horizontal sections through the director field at the top of the post (c–f), simulated polarized optical microscope images (insets) and three dimensional reconstructions (g–j) colored by energy density. Post height is \(h=0.2\ \upmu {\mathrm{m}}\) for (c–e), and \(h=2\ \upmu {\mathrm{m}}\) for (f). k, l Experimentally observed pinwheel and boojum structures in 5CB (4-cyano-4′-pentylbiphenyl), respectively