Related papers: General elastic interaction in nematic liquid crys…
Cholesteric liquid crystals can exhibit spatial patterns in molecular alignment at interfaces that can be exploited for particle assembly. These patterns emerge from the competition between bulk and surface energies, tunable with the system…
When a rigid object approaches a soft material in a viscous fluid, hydrodynamic stresses arise in the lubricated contact region and deform the soft material. The elastic deformation modifies in turn the flow, hence generating a…
We present the first systematic measurements of the dynamic response of a glassy soft-solid formed on dispersing colloids in a thermotropic nematic liquid crystal. Through applying a simple theoretical model, we reveal that the nematic…
Active matter exhibits striking behaviour reminiscent of living matter and molecular fluids, and has promising applications in drug delivery or mixing at the micron scale. Active colloidal systems provide important models with simple and…
A new bosonic, excitonic method for interacting electrons is developed. For two-dimensional electron liquid, it reveals a noncompensated quantum crystal phase ranging from the high density, or vanishing Coulomb interaction, limit: $r_s=0$,…
Within the framework of a discrete Gaussian model, we present analytical results for the interaction induced by a lamellar phase between small embedded colloids. We consider the two limits of particles strongly adherent to the adjacent…
We investigate theoretically the elliptical shapes of soft colloids in freely standing smectic C films, that have been reported recently. The colloids favour parallel alignment of the liquid crystal molecules at their surfaces and, for…
The relevance of anisotropic interactions in colloidal systems has recently emerged in the context of the rational design of new soft materials. Patchy colloids of different shapes, patterns and functionalities are considered the new…
Colloidal particles dispersed in a liquid crystal lead to distortions of the director field. The distortions are responsible for long-range effective colloidal interactions whose asymptotic behaviour is well understood. The short distance…
We study a mesoscopic model of a chemically active colloidal particle which on certain parts of its surface promotes chemical reactions in the surrounding solution. For reasons of simplicity and conceptual clarity, we focus on the case in…
We consider a nematic liquid crystal confined by two parallel planar interfaces, one being laterally homogeneous and the other provided by a substrate endowed with a periodic chemical stripe pattern. Based on continuum theory we analyze the…
Gels in soft-matter systems are an important nonergodic state of matter. We study a colloid-polymer mixture which is quenched by increasing the polymer concentration, from a fluid to a gel. Using confocal microscopy, we study both the…
We introduce a general description of localised distortions in active nematics using the framework of active nematic multipoles. We give the Stokesian flows for arbitrary multipoles in terms of differentiation of a fundamental flow response…
The effects of purely elastic collisions on the dynamics of heavy inertial particles is investigated in a three-dimensional random incompressible flow. It is shown that the statistical properties of inter-particle separations and relative…
The elastic properties of solids are described in close analogy with General Relativity, by locally gauging the translational group of space-time. Electron interactions with the crystal lattice are thus generated by enforcing full gauge…
A theory of the relationship between splay elastic constant K11 and permanent molecular moment of liquid crystals is developed. The theory gives a microscopic estimation of K11 with a correct order of magnitude by calculating the…
Antiferroelectric liquid crystals can be considered as a promising alternative to nematic mixtures in the area of microdisplays. Switching behaviour of the molecules has been modelled as two adjacent smectic layers. However, some studies…
Soft materials, such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions, and biological systems, are typically multicomponent mixtures of macromolecules and simpler components (e.g., microions, monomers, solvent) that can assemble into complex…
Effective electrostatic interactions between colloidal particles, coated with polyelectrolyte brushes and suspended in an electrolyte solvent, are described via linear response theory. The inner cores of the macroions are modeled as hard…
The ability to manipulate polar entities with multiple external fields opens exciting possibilities for emerging functionalities and novel applications in spin systems, photonics, metamaterials, and soft matter. Liquid crystals (LCs),…