Related papers: Liquid crystals boojum-colloids
Monopole-like electrostatic interactions are ubiquitous in biology and condensed matter, but they are often screened by counter-ions and cannot be switched from attractive to repulsive. In colloidal science, where the prime goal is to…
In this paper we use computer simulations to examine point defects in systems of "soft" colloidal particles including Hertzian spheres, and star polymers. We use Monte Carlo simulations to determine the deformation of the different crystals…
We study colloidal particles with chemically inhomogeneous surfaces suspended in a critical binary liquid mixture. The inhomogeneous particle surface is composed of patches with alternating adsorption preferences for the two components of…
The properties of crystals consisting of several components can be widely tuned. Often solid solutions are produced, where substitutional or interstitional disorder determines the crystal thermodynamic and mechanical properties. The…
We exploit the long-ranged elastic fields inherent to confined nematic liquid crystals to assemble colloidal particles trapped at the liquid crystal interface into reconfigurable structures with complex symmetries and packings. Spherical…
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…
The complex physics of self-assembly in colloidal crystals on deformable interfaces and surfaces poses interesting possibilities for the designability and synthesis of next-generation metamaterials. The goal of this article is to…
Aqueous foams coarsen with time due to gas diffusion through the liquid. The mean bubble size grows, and small bubbles vanish. However, coarsening is little understood for foams with an intermediate liquid content, particularly in the…
Many cell functions require a concerted effort from multiple membrane proteins, for example, for signaling, cell division, and endocytosis. One contribution to their successful self-organization stems from the membrane deformations that…
Particle shape and medium chirality are two key features recently used to control anisotropic colloidal self-assembly and dynamics in liquid crystals. Here, we study magnetically responsive gourd-shaped colloidal particles dispersed in…
Solitons in liquid crystals are spatially localised stable configuration of the liquid crystal orientational order parameter that exhibit emergent particle-like properties such as mutual interaction, translational motion and reconfigurable…
Spherical colloidal crystals (CCs) self-assemble on the interface between two liquids. These 2D structures unconventionally combine local hexagonal order and spherical geometry. Nowadays CCs are actively studied by altering their…
Spherical particles confined to a sphere surface cannot pack densely into a hexagonal lattice without defects. In this study, we use hard particle Monte Carlo simulations to determine the effects of continuously deformable shape anisotropy…
Colloidal particles or nanoparticles, with equal affinity for two fluids, are known to adsorb irreversibly to the fluid-fluid interface. We present large-scale computer simulations of the demixing of a binary solvent containing such…
The Landau-de Gennes free energy is used to study theoretically the effective interaction of a spherical "key" and an anisotropic "lock" colloidal particles. We assume identical anchoring properties of the surfaces of the key and of the…
Inclusions dissolved in an anisotropic quasi-2D membrane acquire new types of interactions that can drive assembly of complex structures and patterns. We study colloidal membranes composed of a binary mixture of long and short rods, such…
We demonstrate a variety of ordered patterns, including hexagonal structures and chains, formed by colloidal particles (droplets) at the free surface of a nematic liquid crystal (LC). The surface placement introduces a new type of particle…
Dihedral ('$k$-atic') liquid crystals (DLCs) are assemblies of microscopic constituent particles that exhibit $k$-fold discrete rotational and reflection symmetries. Generalizing the half-integer defects in nematic liquid crystals,…
Anisotropic fluids appear in a diverse array of systems, from liquid-crystal displays to bacterial swarms, and are characterized by orientational order. Large colloidal particles immersed in such environments disturb the medium's…
In this work, we show that Janus washers, genus-one colloids with hybrid anchoring conditions, form topologically required defects in nematic liquid crystals. Experiments under crossed polarizers reveal the defect structure to be a rigid…