Related papers: Surface free energies for nematic shells
In the context of finite elasticity, we propose plate models describing the spontaneous bending of nematic elastomer thin films due to variations along the thickness of the nematic order parameters. Reduced energy functionals are deduced…
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…
The topology and the geometry of a surface play a fundamental role in determining the equilibrium configurations of thin films of liquid crystals. We propose here a theoretical analysis of a recently introduced surface Frank energy, in the…
In soft matter, the phase of nematic liquid crystals can be made from anisotropic molecules in single component materials, or as a suspension of mesoscopic nematogens. The later offers more versatility in the experimental design of complex…
My model, it has three layers, Three layers is nematic. And had it just two layers, it would be a smectic. We study a reduced model of the smectic transition in two dimensions where the particles occupy three equally spaced layers. The role…
Nematic shells are colloidal particles coated with nematic liquid crystal molecules which may freely glide and rotate on the colloid's surface while keeping their long axis on the local tangent plane. We describe the nematic order on a…
The contribution of the smectic-nematic interface to the surface energy of a nematic liquid crystal sample is analyzed. By means of a simple model it is shown that the surface energy depends on the thickness of the region over which the…
We derive the hydrodynamic equations for nematic liquid crystals lying on curved substrates. We invoke the Lagrange-Rayleigh variational principle to adapt the Ericksen-Leslie theory to two-dimensional nematics in which a degenerate…
We analyze an elastic surface energy which was recently introduced by G. Napoli and L.Vergori to model thin films of nematic liquid crystals. We show how a novel approach that takes into account also the extrinsic properties of the surfaces…
We study the phase behavior of a nematic liquid crystal confined between a flat substrate with strong anchoring and a patterned substrate whose structure and local anchoring strength we vary. By first evaluating an effective surface free…
The equilibrium texture of nematic shells is studied as a function of their thickness. For ultrathin shells the ground state has four short 1/2 disclination lines but, as the thickness of the film increases, a three dimensional escaped…
This review introduces the elasticity theory of two-dimensional crystals and nematic liquid crystals on curved surfaces, the energetics of topological defects (disclinations, dislocations and pleats) in these ordered phases, and the…
In the direct approach to continua in reduced space dimensions, a thin shell is described as a mathematical surface in three-dimensional space. An exploratory kinematic study of such surfaces could be very valuable, especially if conducted…
We investigate the tight packing of nematic polymers inside a confining hard sphere. We model the polymer {\sl via} the continuum Frank elastic free energy augmented by a simple density dependent part as well as by taking proper care of the…
We investigate connections between the continuum and atomistic descriptions of deformable crystals, using certain interesting results from number theory. The energy of a deformed crystal is calculated in the context of a lattice model with…
Nematic polymeric networks are (heat and light) activable materials, which combine the features of rubber and nematic liquid crystals. When only the stretching energy of a thin sheet of nematic polymeric network is minimized, the intrinsic…
Nematic interfaces are thin fluid films, ideally two-dimensional, endowed with an in-plane degenerate nematic order. In this letter we examine a generalisation of the classical Plateau problem to an axisymmetric nematic interface bounded by…
A phenomenological free energy model is proposed to describe the behavior of smectic liquid crystals, an intermediate phase that exhibits orientational order and layering at the molecular scale. Advantageous properties render the functional…
The hydrodynamic theory of active nematics has been often used to describe the spatio-temporal dynamics of cell flows and motile topological defects within soft confluent tissues. Those theories, however, often rely on the assumption that…
This review reports some theoretical results on the Geometry of membranes. The governing equations to describe equilibrium configurations of lipid vesicles, lipid membranes with free edges, and chiral lipid membranes are derived from the…