Related papers: Nematic liquid crystal dynamics under applied elec…
Liquid crystal elastomers are cross-linked polymer networks covalently bonded with liquid crystal mesogens. In the nematic phase, due to strong coupling between mechanical strain and orientational order, these materials display…
Nematic liquid crystals at rough and fluctuating interfaces are analyzed within the Frank elastic theory and the Landau-de Gennes theory. We study specifically interfaces that locally favor planar anchoring. In the first part we reconsider…
We study spreading dynamics of nematic liquid crystal droplets within the framework of the long-wave approximation. A fourth order nonlinear parabolic partial differential equation governing the free surface evolution is derived. The…
Cholesteric Liquid Crystals (CLCs), subject to externally applied magnetic fields and confined between two parallel planar surfaces with strong homeotropic anchoring conditions, are found to undergo transitions to different types of…
Chromonic liquid crystals (CLCs) are lyotropic materials which are attracting growing interest for their adaptability to living systems. A considerable body of works has been devoted to exploring their properties and applications. In this…
Stability is an important and fruitful avenue of research for liquid crystal elastomers. At constant temperature, upon stretching, the homogeneous state of a nematic body becomes unstable, and alternating shear stripes develop at very low…
The stability of the equilibrium configurations of a nematic liquid crystal confined between two coaxial cylinders is analysed when a radial electric field is applied and the flexoelectric effect is taken into account. The threshold for…
Recent experiments have reported that ferroelectric nanoparticles have drastic effects on nematic liquid crystals--increasing the isotropic-nematic transition temperature by about 5 K, and greatly increasing the sensitivity to applied…
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…
Liquid-crystal networks consist of weakly crosslinked polymers that are coupled to liquid-crystal molecules. The resultant hybrid system has rich elastic properties. We develop a phase field model to describe mechanical properties of a…
Molecules of a nematic liquid crystal respond to an applied magnetic field by reorienting themselves in the direction of the field. Since the dielectric anisotropy of a nematic is small, it takes relatively large fields to elicit a…
We develop a lattice model for the splay flexoelectric effect in nematic liquid crystals. In this model, each lattice site has a spin representing the local molecular orientation, and the interaction between neighboring spins represents…
Chiral nematic liquid crystals are one-dimensional photonic band-gap materials whose reflection wavelength can be well tuned by temperature, but only limited and irreversible tuning can be achieved by electric fields. In contrast, oblique…
We develop a formal analogy between configurational stresses in two distinct physical systems, and study the flows that they induce when the configurations of interest include topological de- fects. The two systems in question are…
We use lattice Boltzmann simulations of the Beris--Edwards formulation of nematodynamics to probe the response of a nematic liquid crystal with conflicting anchoring at the boundaries under shear and Poiseuille flow. The geometry we focus…
Understanding the flow of liquid crystals in microfluidic environments plays an important role in many fields, including device design and microbiology. We perform hybrid lattice-Boltzmann simulations of a nematic liquid crystal flowing…
Applying an electric field to polarisable colloidal particles, whose permittivity differs from that of the dispersing medium, generates induced dipoles that promote the formation of string-like clusters and ultimately alter the fluid…
We consider a mathematical model that describes the flow of a Nematic Liquid Crystal (NLC) film placed on a flat substrate, across which a spatially-varying electric potential is applied. Due to their polar nature, NLC molecules interact…
We show that a minimal model for viscous fingering with a nematic liquid crystal in which anisotropy is considered to enter through two different viscosities in two perpendicular directions can be mapped to a two-fold anisotropy in the…
Advent of nematic liquid crystals flows have attracted renewed attention in view of microfluidic transport phenomena. Among various transport processes, electroosmosis stands as one of the efficient flow actuation method through narrow…