Related papers: Molecular simulation of hierarchical structures in…
Chiral domains of opposite chirality are observed surprisingly in a nematic phase of an achiral rod-like liquid crystalline mesogen that shows ferroelectric nematic and antiferroelectric smectic phases. The observations of chiral domains of…
In many biological materials with a hierarchical structure there is an intriguing and unique mechanism responsible for the 'propagation' of order from the molecular to the nano- or micro-scale level. Here we present a much simpler molecular…
We report the smectic $A_F$, a new liquid crystal phase of the ferroelectric nematic realm. The smectic $A_F$ is a phase of small polar, rod-shaped molecules which form two-dimensional fluid layers spaced by approximately the mean molecular…
A theoretical analysis is presented of a nematic liquid crystal confined between substrates pat- terned with squares that promote vertical and planar alignment. Two approaches are used to eluci- date the behavior across a wide range of…
We present a method for simulating fluid vesicles with in-plane orientational ordering. The method involves computation of local curvature tensor and parallel transport of the orientational field on a randomly triangulated surface. It is…
Understanding nanoscale mechanisms responsible for the recently discovered ferroelectric nematics can be helped by direct visualization of self-assembly of strongly polar molecules. Here we report on scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)…
Previous theoretical studies of calamitic (i.e., rod-like) ionic liquid crystals (ILCs) based on an effective one-species model led to indications of a novel smectic-A phase with a layer spacing being much larger than the length of the…
The possible symmetries of the biaxial nematic phase are examined against the implications of the presently available experimental results. Contrary to the widespread notion that biaxial nematics have orthorhombic symmetry, our study shows…
Orientational and positional ordering properties of liquid crystal monolayers are examined by means of Fundamental-Measure Density Functional Theory. Particles forming the monolayer are modeled as hard parallelepipeds of square section of…
The smectic C (smC) phase represents a unique class of liquid crystal phases characterised by the layered arrangement of molecules with tilted orientations with respect to layer normals. Building upon the real-valued tensorial smectic A…
What kind of one-dimensional modulated nematic structures (ODMNS) can form nonchiral and chiral bent-core and dimeric materials? Here, using Landau-deGennes theory of nematics, extended to account for molecular steric polarization, we study…
We adapt Vertex models to understand the physical origin of the formation of long-range ordered structures in repulsive soft particles. The model incorporates contributions from the volume and surface area of each particle. Sampling using…
In recent experiments involving PNIPAM copolymers it has been observed that stable spherical nanoparticles are being formed by association of several chains in poor aqueous solution instead of aggregation. This type of mesoscopic structures…
We have studied the effects of quenched random disorder created by dispersed aerosil nanoparticle gels on the nematic to smectic-A (N-SmA) and smectic-A to reentrant nematic (SmA- RN) phase transitions of thermotropic liquid crystal…
The mesophase behaviour of binary mixtures of bent-core and calamitic liquid crystals is presented. The nematogenic 4,6-dichloro-1,3-phenylene bis[4'-(10-undecen-1-yloxy)-1,1'-biphenyl-4-carboxylate] (I) was the banana-shaped component. As…
Certain models with purely repulsive pair interactions can form cluster crystals with multiply-occupied lattice sites. Simulating these models' equilibrium properties is, however, quite challenging. Here, we develop an expanded…
Recent experimental discoveries of novel nematic types with polar order, including ferroelectric nematic and splay nematic have brought the resurgence of the interest in polar and modulated phases. One of the most important factors that is…
Using particle-resolved molecular-dynamics simulations, we compute the phase diagram for soft repulsive spherocylinders confined on the surface of a sphere. While crystal (K), smectic (Sm), and isotropic (I) phases exhibit a stability…
Homogeneous nucleation process of polyethylene (PE) is studied with full-atom molecular dynamic simulation. To account the complex shape with low symmetry and the peculiar intra-chain conformational order of polymer, we introduce a shape…
Soft particles are known to overlap and form stable clusters that self-assemble into periodic crystalline phases with density-independent lattice constants. We use molecular dynamics simulations in two dimensions to demonstrate that,…