Related papers: General elastic interaction in nematic liquid crys…
Physical properties of colloidal materials can be modified by addition of nanoparticles. Within a model of like-charged mixtures of particles governed by effective electrostatic interactions, we explore the influence of charged…
We study the pair interaction of charged silica microrods in chiral nematic liquid crystals and show that the microrods with homeotropic surface anchoring form a bound state due to the competing effect of electrostatic (Coulomb) and elastic…
The electrostatic interaction between pairs of spherical or macroscopically long, parallel cylindrical colloids trapped at fluid interfaces is studied theoretically for the case of small inter-particle separations. Starting from the…
We present a general theory of electric field effects in liquid crystals where the dielectric tensor depends on the orientation order. As applications, we examine (i) the director fluctuations in nematic states in electric field for…
Colloidal particles at complex fluid interfaces and within films assemble to form ordered structures with high degrees of symmetry via interactions that include capillarity, elasticity, and other fields like electrostatic charge. Here we…
Colloidal gels are out of equilibrium soft solids composed of attractive Brownian particles that form a space-spanning network at low volume fractions. The elastic properties of these systems result from the network microstructure, which is…
Particles that are immersed in a fluid exchange momentum via the fluid, hence their Brownian motion is correlated. By means of multiparticle-collision dynamics simulations we study the interactions between two colloidal beads in a sheared…
We analyze the effective potential for nanoparticles trapped at a fluid interface within a simple model which incorporates surface and line tensions as well as a thermal average over interface fluctuations (capillary waves). For a single…
Liquid crystal elastomers are cross-linked elastomer networks with liquid crystal mesogens incorporated into the main or side chain. Polydomain liquid crystalline (nematic) elastomers exhibit unusual mechanical properties like soft…
Placing colloidal particles in predesigned sites represents a major challenge of the current state-of-the-art colloidal science. Nematic liquid crystals with spatially varying director patterns represent a promising approach to achieve a…
Point polarizable molecules at fixed spatial positions have solvable electrostatic properties in classical approximation, the most familiar being the Clausius-Mossotti (CM) formula. This paper generalizes the model and imagines various…
Colloidal gels are widely applied in industry due to their rheological character -- no flow takes place below the yield stress. Such property enables gels to maintain uniform distribution in practical formulations; otherwise, solid…
Artificial soft matter systems have appeared as important tools to harness mechanical motion for microscale manipulation. Typically, this motion is driven either by the external fields or by mutual interaction between the colloids. In the…
We have studied the nucleation and the physical properties of a -1/2 wedge disclination line near the free surface of a confined nematic liquid crystal. The position of the disclination line has been related to the material parameters…
The interaction of the electric and magnetic dipole moments of a particle with the electromagnetic field is investigated in an approach that deals with four-dimensional (4D) geometric quantities. The new commutation relations for the 4D…
Liquid crystals establish a nearly unique combination of thermodynamic, hydrodynamic, and topological behavior. This poses a challenge to their theoretical understanding and modeling. The arena where these effects come together is the…
Motile living organisms routinely probe their surroundings to adapt in ever-evolving environments. Although synthetic microswimmers offer surrogates for self-propelled living entities, they often lack the complex feedback mechanisms that…
Most active colloid experiments are quasi-2D. Here a 3D density-matched solution of active particles propelled and aligned with an AC electric field uniquely facilitates measurement of short and long-range particle-wall interactions.…
In biomimetic and biological systems, interactions between surfaces are often mediated by adhesive molecules, nanoparticles, or colloids dispersed in the surrounding solution. We present here a general, statistical-mechanical model for two…
We establish, as $\rho\to 0$, an asymptotic expansion for the minimal Dirichlet energy of $\mathbb S^2$-valued maps outside a finite number of three-dimensional particles of size $\rho$ with fixed centers $x_j\in\mathbb{R}^3$, under general…