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Placing colloidal particles in predesigned sites represents a major challengeof the current state-of-the-art colloidal science. Nematic liquid crystals withspatially varying director patterns represent a promising approach to achieve awell-controlled placement of colloidal particles thanks to the elastic forcesbetween the particles and the surrounding landscape of molecular orientation.Here we demonstrate how the spatially varying director field can be used tocontrol placement of non-spherical particles of boomerang shape. The boomerangcolloids create director distortions of a dipolar symmetry. When a boomerangparticle is placed in a periodic splay-bend director pattern, it migratestowards the region of a maximum bend. The behavior is contrasted to that one ofspherical particles with normal surface anchoring, which also produce dipolardirector distortions, but prefer to compartmentalize into the regions with amaximum splay. The splay-bend periodic landscape thus allows one to spatiallyseparate these two types of particles. By exploring overdamped dynamics of thecolloids, we determine elastic driving forces responsible for the preferentialplacement. Control of colloidal locations through patterned molecularorientation can be explored for future applications in microfluidic, lab on achip, sensing and sorting devices.

Controlling placement of nonspherical (boomerang) colloids in nematic cells with photopatterned director