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Self-assembly of colloidal particles due to elastic interactions in nematicliquid crystals promises tunable composite materials and can be guided byexploiting surface functionalization, geometric shape and topology, thoughthese means of controlling self-assembly remain limited. Here, we realizelow-symmetry achiral and chiral elastic colloids in the nematic liquid crystalsusing colloidal polygonal concave and convex prisms. We show that thecontrolled pinning of disclinations at the prisms edges alters the symmetry ofdirector distortions around the prisms and their orientation with respect tothe far-field director. The controlled localization of the disclinations at theprism's edges significantly influences anisotropy of the diffusion propertiesof prisms dispersed in liquid crystals and allows one to modify theirself-assembly. We show that elastic interactions between polygonal prisms canbe switched between repulsive and attractive just by controlled re-pinning thedisclinations at different edges using laser tweezers. Our findings demonstratethat elastic interactions between colloidal particles dispersed in nematicliquid crystals are sensitive to the topologically equivalent but geometricallyrich controlled configurations of the particle-induced defects.

Repulsion-attraction switching of nematic colloids formed by liquid crystal dispersions of polygonal prisms