Related papers: Directed Self-Assembly of Quantum Dots in a Nemati…
One of the central experimental efforts in nematic colloids research aims to explore how the interplay between the geometry of particles along with the accompanying nematic director deformations and defects around them can provide a means…
Attractive dipole interactions can be induced between equally charged soft nanoparticles under the influence of AC electric fields. The combination of charge repulsion and dipole attraction, along with different screening responses from an…
This article models experimentally observed three dimensional particle-like waves that develop in nematic liquid crystals, with negative dielectric and conductive anisotropy, when subject to an applied alternating electric field. The liquid…
One objective of active matter science is to unveil principles by which chaotic microscale dynamics could be transformed into useful work. A nematic liquid crystal environment offers a number of possibilities, one of which is a directional…
The surface curvature of membranes, interfaces, and substrates plays a crucial role in shaping the self-assembly of particles adsorbed on these surfaces. However, little is known about the interplay between particle anisotropy and surface…
An amalgamate of nematic liquid crystals and active matter, referred to as living liquid crystals, is a promising self-healing material with futuristic applications for targeted delivery of information and micro-cargo. We provide a…
One of the challenges of self-assembling finite-sized colloidal aggregates with a sought morphology is the necessity of precisely sorting the position of the colloids at the microscopic scale to avoid the formation of off-target structures.…
Recent theoretical research has developed a general framework to understand director deformations and modulated phases in nematic liquid crystals. In this framework, there are four fundamental director deformation modes: twist, bend, splay,…
A heterogeneous and dilute suspension of catalytically active colloids is studied as a non-equilibrium analogue of ionic systems, which has the remarkable feature of action-reaction symmetry breaking. Symmetrically coated colloids are found…
We use linear stability analysis to show that an isotropic phase of elongated particles with dipolar flow fields can develop nematic order as a result of their activity. We argue that ordering is favoured if the particles are flow-aligning…
Nematic liquid crystals exhibit configurations in which the underlying ordering changes markedly on macroscopic length scales. Such structures include topological defects in the nematic phase and tactoids within nematic-isotropic…
An electronic nematic state spontaneously breaks a point-group symmetry of an underlying lattice. As a result, the nematic-isotropic transition accompanies a Fermi surface distortion. However, the anisotropic nature of the nematic state at…
Lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs) represent aqueous dispersions of organic disk-like molecules that form cylindrical aggregates. Despite the growing interest in these materials, their flow behavior is poorly understood. Here, we…
Levitated nanospheres in optical cavities open a novel route to study many-body systems out of solution and highly isolated from the environment. We show that properly tuned optical parameters allow for the study of the non-equilibrium…
The actin cytoskeleton is remarkably adaptable and multifunctional. It often organizes into nematic bundles such as contractile rings or stress fibers. However, how a uniform and isotropic actin gel self-organizes into dense nematic bundles…
Self-assembly of colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) into superlattices (SLs) is an appealing strategy to design hierarchically organized materials with new functionalities. Mechanistic studies are still needed to uncover the design principles for…
Monopole-like electrostatic interactions are ubiquitous in biology and condensed matter, but they are often screened by counter-ions and cannot be switched from attractive to repulsive. In colloidal science, where the prime goal is to…
Achieving control and tunability of lyotropic materials has been a long-standing goal of liquid crystal research. Here we show that the elasticity of a liquid crystal system consisting of a dense suspension of semiflexible biopolymers can…
Colloidal particles are considered ideal building blocks to produce materials with enhanced physical properties. The state-of-the-art techniques for synthesizing these particles provide control over shape, size, and directionality of the…
Curved particles have been shown to stabilize a range of states with unique order in dense suspensions of colloidal bent core liquid crystals. The shape of the colloidal rods encourages the formation of curved director fields. However,…