Related papers: Bivalent defect configurations in inhomogeneous ne…
Collectively moving cellular systems often contain a proportion of dead cells or non-motile genotypes. When mixed, nematically aligning motile and non-motile agents are known to segregate spontaneously. However, the role that topological…
We study the topological configurations and dynamics of individual point defect vacancies and interstitials in a two-dimensional colloidal crystal. Our Brownian dynamics simulations show that the diffusion mechanism for vacancy defects…
We numerically investigate the rheological response of a non-coalescing multiple emulsion under a symmetric shear flow. We find that the dynamics significantly depends on the magnitude of the shear rate and on the number of the encapsulated…
Defect dynamics in a thin active nematic layer is studied by asymptotic matching of solutions in the defect core and the far field. The analysis is facilitated by the correspondence between the 2D nematic and complex scalar field models.…
Nematic colloids exhibit a large diversity of topological defects and structures induced by colloidal particles in the orientationally ordered liquid crystal host fluids. These defects and field configurations define elastic interactions…
The stability of demixing phase transition in binary mixtures of hard plates (with thickness L and diameter D) and hard spheres (with diameter $\sigma$) is studied by means of Parsons-Lee theory. The isotropic-isotropic demixing, which is…
Engineering synthetic materials that mimic the remarkable complexity of living organisms is a fundamental challenge in science and technology. We study the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge when an active nematicfilm of microtubules and…
Topological defects resulted from boundary constraints in confined liquid crystals have attracted extensive research interests. In this paper, we use numerical simulation to study the phase transition dynamics in the context of stochastic…
The evaporation of drops of colloidal suspensions plays an important role in numerous contexts, such as the production of powdered dairies, the synthesis of functional supraparticles, and virus and bacteria survival in aerosols or drops on…
We study a microscopically realistic model of a physical gel and use computer simulations to investigate its static and dynamic properties at thermal equilibrium. The phase diagram comprises a sol phase, a coexistence region ending at a…
We explore a novel strategy of patterning nematic elastomers that does not require inscribing the texture directly. It is based on varying the dopant concentration that, beside shifting the phase transition point, affects the nematic…
We show that topological defects in an ion-doped nematic liquid crystal can be used to manipulate the surface charge distribution on chemically homogeneous, charge-regulating external surfaces, using a minimal theoretical model. In…
Motivated by recent experiments on the rod-like virus bacteriophage fd, confined to circular and annular domains, we present a theoretical study of structural transitions in these geometries. Using the continuum theory of nematic liquid…
We consider two dimensional dispersions of droplets of isotropic phase in a liquid with an XY-like order parameter, tilt, nematic, and hexatic symmetries being included. Strong anchoring boundary conditions are assumed. Textures for a…
Confining a liquid crystal imposes topological constraints on the orientational order, allowing global control of equilibrium systems by manipulation of anchoring boundary conditions. In this article, we investigate whether a similar…
An individual defect in a nematic liquid crystal moves not only in response to its interaction with other defects but also in response to an external field. We analyze the motion of a wedge disclination in the presence of an applied field…
In search for novel nematic materials, a laterally linked H-shaped liquid crystal dimer have been synthesized and characterized. The distinct feature of the material is a very broad temperature range (about 50 oC) of the nematic phase,…
Topological defects provide a unifying language to describe how orientational order breaks down in active and living matter. Considering cells as elongated particles confluent, epithelial tissues can be interpreted as nematic fields and its…
We study the phase behaviour of a quasi-two dimensional cholesteric liquid crystal shell. We characterise the topological phases arising close to the isotropic-cholesteric transition, and show that they differ in a fundamental way from…
The phase behaviour of colloidal dispersions is interesting for fundamental reasons and for technological applications such as photonic crystals and electronic paper. Sedimentation, which in everyday life is relevant from blood analysis to…