Related papers: Liquid crystal cells with "dirty" substrates
The short-range attraction and long-range repulsion (SALR) between nanoparticles or macromolecules can lead to spontaneous pattern formation on solid surfaces, fluid interfaces or membranes. In order to study the self-assembly in such…
We investigate the growth of two-dimensional (2D) crystals on fluctuating surfaces using a phase field crystal model that is relevant on atomic length and diffusive time scales. Motivated by recent experiments which achieved unprecedented…
Monte Carlo studies of the 3D random field $XY$ model on simple cubic lattices of size $64^3$, using two different isotropic random-field probability distributions of moderate strength, show a glassy freezing behavior above $T_c$, and…
We examine a two-dimensional nonequilibrium lattice model where particles adsorb at empty sites and desorb when the number of neighbouring particles is greater than a given threshold. In a certain range of parameters the model exhibits…
Using transfer operator and fundamental measure theories, we examine the structural and thermodynamic properties of hard rectangles confined between two parallel hard walls. The side lengths of the rectangle ($L$ and $D$, $L>D$) and the…
We study the equilibrium configuration of a nematic liquid crystal bounded by a rough surface. The wrinkling of the surface induces a partial melting in the degree of orientation. This softened region penetrates the bulk up to a length…
We study packings of hard spheres on lattices. The partition function, and therefore the pressure, may be written solely in terms of the accessible free volume, i.e. the volume of space that a sphere can explore without touching another…
We construct a new order parameter from the normal modes of vibration, based on the consideration of energy equipartition, to quantify the structural heterogeneity in disordered solids. The order parameter exhibits strong spatial…
We propose a coarse-grained theoretical model to capture the aging of microfluidic devices under different conditions including constant applied flow rate and constant applied pressure gradient. Microfluidic devices that sort cells by their…
Plastic deformation of heterogeneous solid structures is often characterized by random intermittent local plastic events. On the mesoscale this feature can be represented by a spatially fluctuating local yield threshold. Here we study the…
We determine the effective behavior of a class of composites in finite-strain crystal plasticity, based on a variational model for materials made of fine parallel layers of two types. While one component is completely rigid in the sense…
Enormous enhancement in the viscosity of a liquid near its glass transition is generally connected to the growing many-body static correlations near the transition, often coined as `amorphous ordering'. Estimating the length scales of such…
The ordering of particles in the drying process of a colloidal suspension is crucial in determining the properties of the resulting film. For example, microscopic inhomogeneities can lead to the formation of cracks and defects that can…
The competing effect of a periodic pinning potential and random point disorder is studied for arrays of elastic lines or directed polymers. The groundstates are investigated by exact combinatorial optimization. In both two and three…
The theory of disordered elastic systems is one of the most powerful frameworks to assess the physics of multiple systems that span from ferromagnets to migrating biological cells. In this formalism, one assumes that the system can be…
Phase diagram and pattern formation in two-dimensional Ising model with coupling between order parameter and lattice vibrations is investigated by Monte-Carlo simulations. It is shown that if the coupling is strong enough (or phonons are…
The structural properties of packed soft-core particles provide a platform to understand the cross-pollinated physical concepts in solid-state- and soft-matter physics. Confined on spherical surface, the traditional differential geometry…
A two-dimensional system of soft particles interacting via a two-length-scale potential is studied. Density functional theory and Brownian dynamics simulations reveal a fluid phase and two crystalline phases with different lattice spacing.…
We analyze stability of the planar orientational structure in a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) cell with planar anchoring conditions at both substrates. Specifically, we study the instabilities of the ground state caused by surface elasticity…
Instabilities are discussed which take place when a nematic liquid crystal (LC) layer, enclosed between a planar reference plate and a photosensitive substrate, is illuminated with polarized light from the reference side ({\it reverse}…