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Frustration of chiral ordering is explored in cholesteric liquid crystal droplets with planar degenerate anchoring using numerical modeling. Droplets of variable pitches are studied, demonstrating the role of a gradually increasing cholesteric pitch and the corresponding equilibrium structures. All previously known structures are identified but with notable differences. The structures presented with director fields are complemented with a detailed description of the defect regions. The characteristic half-diameter +2 disclination from previous studies is found to be in fact a double-helix of two λ+1 disclination lines, whereas the full-diameter +1 disclination is composed of an alternating series of τ−1/2 and λ+1/2 disclination rings. Finally, two new meta-stable cholesteric structures -Lyre and Yeti- are found, which are characterised by complex compositions of cholesteric disclinations.
Seč et al. (Sun,) studied this question.