Related papers: Helical, Angular and Radial Ordering in Narrow Cap…
The confluence of quantum mechanics and complexity, which leads to the emergence of rich, exotic states of matter, motivates the extension of our concepts of quantum ordering. The twin concepts of spontaneously broken symmetry, described in…
Hypothesis: Anisotropic rod particles in capillary suspensions form complex network structures with distinctive orientation patterns and rheological properties that differ significantly from spherical particle systems. By identifying the…
Optical polarimetry measurements of the orientational order of a discotic liquid crystal based on a pyrene derivative and confined in parallel-aligned nanochannels of monolithic mesoporous alumina, silica, and silicon as a function of…
We investigate the ordering properties of vertically-vibrated monolayers of granular cylinders in a circular container at high packing fraction. In line with previous works by other groups, we identify liquid-crystalline ordering behaviour…
In chiral ferromagnets, weak spin-orbit interactions twist the ferromagnetic order into spirals, leading to helical order. We investigate an extended Ginzburg-Landau theory of such systems where the helical order is destabilized in favor of…
We discuss some interesting physical features stemming from our previous analytical study of a simple model of a fluid with dipolar-like interactions of very short range in addition to the usual isotropic Baxter potential for adhesive…
We investigate how imposing kinetic restrictions on quantum particles that would otherwise hop freely on a two-dimensional lattice can lead to topologically ordered states. The kinetically constrained models introduced here are derived as a…
Herein, fundamentals of topology and symmetry breaking are used to understand crystallization and geometrical frustration in topologically close-packed structures. This frames solidification from a new perspective that is unique from…
The assembly of colloids in nematic liquid crystals via topological defects has been extensively studied for spherical particles, and investigations of other colloid shapes have revealed a wide array of new assembly behaviors. We show,…
We investigate the morphology of diblock copolymers in the vicinity of flat, chemically patterned surfaces. Using a Ginzburg-Landau free energy, spatial variations of the order parameter are given in terms of a general two-dimensional…
Smectic materials represent a unique state between fluids and solids, characterized by orientational and partial positional order, making them notoriously difficult to model, particularly in confining geometries. We propose a complex order…
We consider weak topological insulators with a twofold rotation symmetry around the dark direction, and show that these systems can be endowed with the topological crystalline structure of a higher-order topological insulator protected by…
The nucleation kinetics of the rotator phase in hard cuboctahedra, truncated octahedra, and rhombic dodecahedra is simulated via a combination of Forward Flux Sampling and Umbrella Sampling. For comparable degree of supersaturation, the…
Two-dimensional colloidal suspensions exposed to periodic external fields exhibit a variety of molecular crystalline phases. There two or more colloids assemble at lattice sites of potential minima to build new structural entities, referred…
We study experimentally the impact of spherical nanoparticles on the orientational order parameters of a host nematic liquid crystal. We use spherical core-shell quantum dots that are surface functionalized to promote homeotropic anchoring…
Spontaneous self-assembly of hard convex polyhedra are known to form orientationally disordered crystalline phases, where particle orientations do not follow the same pattern as the positional arrangement of the crystal. A distinct type of…
In this article we calculate the surface phase diagram of a two-dimensional hard-rod fluid confined between two hard lines. In a first stage we study the semi-infinite system consisting of an isotropic fluid in contact with a single hard…
In flat geometries, two dimensional hexatic order has only a minor effect on capillary waves on a liquid substrate and on undulation modes in lipid bilayers. However, extended bond orientational order alters the long wavelength spectrum of…
Self-assembly of particles with short-range attraction and long-range repulsion (SALR) interactions on a flat and on a spherical surface is compared. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are performed for the two systems having the same area…
Various possibilities of polar self-organisation in low molar mass nematic, smectic and columnar liquid crystals are discussed with particular focus on the underlying molecular symmetries and interactions. Distinction is made between vector…