Related papers: Effective free energy method for nematic liquid cr…
We propose an extension of Frank-Oseen's elastic energy for bulk nematic liquid crystals which is based on the hypothesis that the fundamental deformations allowed in nematic liquid crystals are splay, twist and bend. The extended elastic…
We consider a nematic liquid crystal, in coexistence with its isotropic phase, in contact with a substrate patterned with rectangular grooves. In such a system, the nematic phase may fill the grooves without the occurrence of complete…
We stabilize nematic droplets with handles against surface-tension-driven instabilities using a yield-stress material as outer fluid and study the complex nematic textures and defect structures that result from the competition between…
We describe a self-contained procedure to evaluate the free energy of liquid and solid phases of an alloy system. The free energy of a single-element solid phase is calculated with thermodynamic integration using the Einstein crystal as the…
Using a thermodynamic integration scheme, we compute the free energy cost per unit area, $\gamma$, of forming an interface between a crystal and a frozen structured wall, formed by particles frozen into the same equilibrium structure as the…
We compute the $\Gamma$-limit of energy functionals describing mechanical systems composed of a thin nematic liquid crystal elastomer sustaining a homogeneous and isotropic elastic membrane. We work in the regime of infinitesimal…
We employ a novel hydrodynamic framework for active matter coupled to an environment to study the local temperature of an active nematic, assuming proximity to thermal equilibrium. We show that, due to the mechanosensitivity of fuel…
We analyse the finite-size corrections to the free energy of crystals with a fixed center of mass. When we explicitly correct for the leading ($\ln N/N$) corrections, the remaining free energy is found to depend linearly on 1/N.…
We aimed to use finite element method to simulate the unique behaviors of liquid crystal elastomer, such as semi-soft elasticity, stripe domain instabilities etc. We started from an energy functional with the 2D Bladon-Warner-Terentjev…
In this investigation we revisit the concept of "effective free surfaces" arising in the solution of the time-averaged fluid dynamics equations in the presence of free boundaries. This work is motivated by applications of the optimization…
A body immersed in a nematic liquid crystal disturbs the fluid's preferred molecular configuration and increases its stored elastic energy. In an active nematic, the fluid components also generate a stress in the bulk fluid. By introducing…
In the molecular dynamics calculations for the free energy of ions and ionic molecules, we often encounter wet charged molecular systems where electrical neutrality condition is broken. This causes a problem in the evaluation of…
We use a continuum, two-fluid approach to study a mixture of two active nematic fluids. Even in the absence of thermodynamically-driven ordering, for mixtures of different activities we observe turbulent microphase separation, where domains…
We consider a two-dimensional lattice model for liquid crystals consisting of long rods interacting via purely hard core interactions, with two allowed orientations defined by the underlying lattice. We rigorously prove the existence of a…
Successful realization of ferromagnetic nematic liquid crystals has opened up the possibility to experimentally study a completely new set of fundamental physical phenomena. In this contribution we present a detailed investigation of some…
Motile liquid crystal (LC) colloids show peculiar behavior due to the high sensitivity to external stimuli driven by the LC elastic and surface effects. However, few studies focus on harnessing the LC phase transitions to propel colloidal…
We examine the equilibrium configurations of a nematic liquid crystal with an immersed body in two-dimensions. A complex variables formulation provides a means for finding analytical solutions in the case of strong anchoring. Local…
We use computer simulations to investigate the stability of a two-component polymer brush de-mixing on a curved template into phases of different morphological properties. It has been previously shown via molecular dynamics simulations that…
Starting for the Stillinger and Weber expression for the free energy of supercooled liquids, we extend the free energy to the case in which two time scales separate and the system is in quasi-equilibrium. The concept of an effective…
We consider a continuum model describing the dynamic behavior of nematic liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) and implement a numerical scheme to solve the governing equations. In the model, the Helmholtz free energy and Rayleigh dissipation…