Related papers: Defect structures in nematic liquid crystals aroun…
We present a general theory of liquid crystals under inhomogeneous electric field in a Ginzburg-Landau scheme. The molecular orientation can be deformed by electric field when the dielectric tensor is orientation-dependent. We then…
We study the director field around a spherical particle immersed in a uniformly aligned nematic liquid crystal and assume that the molecules prefer a homeotropic orientation at the surface of the particle. Three structures are possible: a…
We consider a nematic liquid crystal occupying the three-dimensional domain in the exterior of a spherical colloid particle. The nematic is subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions that enforce orthogonal attachment of nematic molecules to…
We use molecular dynamics to study the ordering of a nematic liquid crystal around a spherical particle or droplet. Homeotropic boundary conditions and strong anchoring create a hedgehog director configuration on the particle surface and in…
We consider a nematic liquid crystal occupying the exterior region in R^3 outside of a spherical particle, with radial strong anchoring. Within the context of the Landau-de Gennes theory, we study minimizers subject to a strong external…
We study the weak anchoring condition for nematic liquid crystals in the context of the Landau-De Gennes model. We restrict our attention to two dimensional samples and to nematic director fields lying in the plane, for which the Landau-De…
Disclination configurations of a nematic liquid crystal are studied within a self-consistent molecular field theory. The theory is based on a tensor order parameter, and can accommodate anisotropic elastic energies without the known…
Linear defects such as dislocations and disclinations in ordered materials attract foreign particles since they replace strong elastic distortions at the defect cores. In this work, we explore the behavior of isotropic droplets nucleating…
Using computer simulations we investigate the microscopic structure of the singular director field within a nematic droplet. As a theoretical model for nematic liquid crystals we take hard spherocylinders. To induce an overall topological…
Free interfaces of liquid crystals tend to minimise both capillarity and anchoring forces. Here we study nematic films in planar and radial geometries with antagonistic anchoring boundary conditions and one deformable interface. Assuming a…
We investigate the emergence of orientational order among +1/2 disclinations in active nematic liquid crystals. Using a combination of theoretical and experimental methods, we show that +1/2 disclinations have short-range antiferromagnetic…
Substrates which are chemically or topographically patterned induce a variety of liquid crystal textures. The response of the liquid crystal to competing surface orientations, typical of patterned substrates, is determined by the anisotropy…
The effective interaction between spherical colloids in nematic liquid crystals is investigated in the framework of the Landau-de Gennes theory. The colloids differ through their interaction with the nematic. While both particles induce…
We study planar nematic equilibria on a two-dimensional annulus with strong and weak tangent anchoring, within the Oseen-Frank and Landau-de Gennes theories for nematic liquid crystals. We analyse the defect-free state in the Oseen-Frank…
To model a nematic emulsion consisting of a surfactant-coated water droplet dispersed in a nematic host, we performed a molecular dynamics simulation of a droplet immersed in a system of 2048 Gay-Berne ellipsoids in a nematic phase. Strong…
We investigate the defect structures forming around two nanoparticles in a Gay-Berne nematic liquid crystal using molecular simulations. For small separations, disclinations entangle both particles forming the figure of eight, the figure of…
We study the morphology of the Saturn ring defect and director structure around a colloidal particle with normal anchoring conditions and within the flow of the nematic host phase through a rectangular duct of comparable size to the…
Within the framework of continuum theory, we draw a parallel between ferromagnetic materials and nematic liquid crystals confined on curved surfaces, which are both characterized by local interaction and anchoring potentials. We show that…
A systematic analysis of defect textures in facetted nanoparticles with polygonal configurations embedded in a nematic matrix is performed using the Landau-de Gennes model, homeotropic strong anchoring in a square domain with uniform…
Monte Carlo simulation, experiment and continuum theory are used to examine the anchoring exhibited by a nematic liquid crystal at a patterned substrate comprising a periodic array of rectangles that, respectively, promote vertical and…