Related papers: Mechanical switching of ferro-electric rubber
Chiral rodlike colloids exposed to strong depletion attraction may self-assemble into chiral membranes whose twisted director field differs from that of a 3D bulk chiral nematic. We formulate a simple microscopic variational theory to…
The temperature dependence of the elastocaloric (eC) effect in natural rubber (NR) is studied adiabatically and isothermally. A broad temperature span for eC effect from 0 oC to 49 oC is observed. The maximum adiabatic temperature change…
We discuss the nonlinear elastic response in scale invariant solids. Following previous work, we split the analysis into two basic options: according to whether scale invariance (SI) is a manifest or a spontaneously broken symmetry. In the…
Liquid crystal elastomers realize a fascinating new form of soft matter that is a composite of a conventional crosslinked polymer gel (rubber) and a liquid crystal. These {\em solid} liquid crystal amalgams, quite similarly to their…
Semiconductivity and superconductivity are remarkable quantum phenomena that have immense impact on science and technology, and materials that can be tuned, usually by pressure or doping, to host both types of quantum states are of great…
Chiral nematic liquid crystals exhibit both a helical planar ground state with uniform twist and a metastable defect-rich focal conic texture, and can be switched between the two microstructures via application of transient voltage pulses.…
Elastomers are artificial polymeric materials created for industrial and commercial applications. Depending on their purpose, they are performing in different species and structure modifications. Our studies focus on the systems of…
We present a theory for the low-frequency, long-wavelength dynamics of soft smectic-C elastomers with locked-in smectic layers. Our theory, which goes beyond pure hydrodynamics, predicts a dynamic soft elasticity of these elastomers and…
Due to the intertwining between electronic nematic and elastic degrees of freedom, lattice defects and structural inhomogeneities commonly found in crystals can have a significant impact on the electronic properties of nematic materials.…
Uniaxial elastomers are characterized by five elastic constants. If their elastic modulus C_5 describing the energy of shear strains in planes containing the anisotropy axis vanishes, they are said to be soft. In spatial dimensions d less…
Embedding magnetic colloidal particles in an elastic polymer matrix leads to smart soft materials that can reversibly be addressed from outside by external magnetic fields. We discover a pronounced nonlinear superelastic stress-strain…
Soft robotics requires materials that are capable of large deformation and amenable to actuation with external stimuli such as electric fields. Energy harvesting, biomedical devices, flexible electronics and sensors are some other…
Topological spin and polar textures have fascinated people in different areas of physics and technologies. However, the observations are limited in magnetic and solid-state ferroelectric systems. Ferroelectric nematic is the first…
The discovery of fluid states of matter with spontaneous bulk polar order is appreciated as a major discovery in the fields of soft matter and liquid crystals. Typically, this manifests as polar order superimposed atop conventional phase…
We present a model for smectic elastomer membranes which includes elastic and liquid crystalline degrees of freedom. Based on our model, we determined the qualitative phase diagram of a smectic elastomer membrane using mean-field theory.…
Modeling liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) at the molecular level is crucial for the predictable design of energy-conversion and stimuli-responsive materials. Here, we develop a self-consistent field theory for LCEs which captures the…
Change in the interatomic spacing of a two-atom system under tension and compression has been modelled by the elastic deformation of atoms. The critical elastic strain of atoms before separation or cracking from tension was estimated by the…
We consider theoretically the properties of piezoelectricity in cholesteric elastomers. We deduce using symmetry considerations the piezoelectric contributions to the free energy in the context of a coarse-grained description of the…
The sensitive dependence of electronic and thermoelectric properties of MoS$_2$ on the applied strain opens up a variety of applications in the emerging area of straintronics. Using first principles based density functional theory…
We study the low-frequency, long-wavelength dynamics of liquid crystal elastomers, crosslinked in the smectic-$A$ phase, in their smectic-$A$, biaxial smectic and smectic-$C$ phases. Two different yet related formulations are employed. One…