Related papers: Topology and Geometry of Smectic Order on Compact …
We study the dynamics of a one-component liquid constrained on a spherical substrate, a 2-sphere, and investigate how the mode-coupling theory (MCT) can describe the new features brought by the presence of curvature. To this end we have…
We present a dynamic model to study ordering of particles on arbitrary curved surfaces. Thereby the particles are represented as maxima in a density field and a surface partial differential equation for the density field is solved to the…
Surface-induced profiles of both nematic and smectic order parameters in a nematic liquid crystal, ranging from an orienting substrate to "infinity", were evaluated numerically on base of an extended Landau theory. In order to obtain a…
Rod-like objects at high packing fractions can form smectic phases, where the rods break rotational and translational symmetry by forming lamellae. Smectic defects thereby include both discontinuities in the rod orientational order…
We investigate the phase behaviour of a two-dimensional colloidal model system of ultra-soft particles on a substrate which varies periodically along one spatial direction. Our calculations are based on mean-field density functional theory…
Many physical systems involve two types of orientational order, which are coupled together. For example, ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals have coupled polar and nematic order, and tilted hexatic phases have coupled polar and hexatic…
Surfaces of multilayer semiconductors typically have regions of atomically flat terraces separated by atom-high steps. Here we investigate the properties of the low-energy states appearing at the surface atomic steps in \snte. We identify…
Electronic liquid-crystal phases are observed in numerous strongly-correlated systems including high-temperature superconductors. However, identifying these exotic phases and understanding their interplay with superconductivity in…
The low-energy physics of (quasi)degenerate one-dimensional systems is typically understood as the particle-like dynamics of kinks between stable, ordered structures. Such dynamics, we show, becomes highly non-trivial when the ground states…
My model, it has three layers, Three layers is nematic. And had it just two layers, it would be a smectic. We study a reduced model of the smectic transition in two dimensions where the particles occupy three equally spaced layers. The role…
A coupled phase-field and hydrodynamic model is introduced to describe a two-phase, weakly compressible smectic (layered phase) in contact with an isotropic fluid of different density. A non-conserved smectic order parameter is coupled to a…
The smectic C (smC) phase represents a unique class of liquid crystal phases characterised by the layered arrangement of molecules with tilted orientations with respect to layer normals. Building upon the real-valued tensorial smectic A…
The homotopy theory of topological defects in ordered media fails to completely characterize systems with broken translational symmetry. We argue that the problem can be understood in terms of the lack of rotational Goldstone modes in such…
A flux liquid can condense into a smectic crystal in a pure layered superconductor with the magnetic field oriented nearly parallel to the layers. Similar order can arise in low temperature $^4$He films with a highly anisotropic periodic…
We consider the numerical investigation of surface bound orientational order using unit tangential vector fields by means of a gradient-flow equation of a weak surface Frank-Oseen energy. The energy is composed of intrinsic and extrinsic…
The interplay between dissipation and correlation can lead to novel emergent phenomena in open systems. Here we investigate ``steady-state topological order'' defined by the robust topological degeneracy of steady states, which is a…
A theoretical study of vesicles of topological genus zero is presented. The bilayer membranes forming the vesicles have various degrees of intrinsic (tangent-plane) orientational order, ranging from smectic to hexatic, frustrated by…
Toroidal templates such as vesicles with hexatic bond orientational order are discussed. The total energy including disclination charges is explicitly computed for hexatic order embedded in a toroidal geometry. Related results apply for…
Recent experiments on vesicles formed from block copolymers with liquid-crystalline side-chains reveal a rich variety of vesicle morphologies. The additional internal order ("structure") developed by these self-assembled block copolymer…
In amorphous materials, plasticity is localized and occurs as shear transformations. It was recently shown by Wu et al. that these shear transformations can be predicted by applying topological defect concepts developed for liquid crystals…