Related papers: Stable nematic droplets with handles
The ground state of twist-bend nematic liquid crystals is a heliconical molecular arrangement in which the nematic director precesses uniformly about an axis, making a fixed angle with it. Both precession senses are allowed in the ground…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into directional motion, giving rise to striking dynamical phenomena. Developing a general understanding of their structure in relation to the underlying non-equilibrium physics would…
We report curling self-propulsion in aqueous emulsions of common mesogenic compounds. Nematic liquid crystal droplets self-propel in a surfactant solution with concentrations above the critical micelle concentration while undergoing…
Chiral condensed matter systems, such as liquid crystals and magnets, exhibit a host of spatially localized topological structures that emerge from the medium's tendency to twist and its competition with confinement and field coupling…
Motivated by recent experiments, we consider theoretically the compression of droplets pinned at the bottom on a surface of finite area. We show that if the droplet is sufficiently compressed at the top by a surface, it will always develop…
A spontaneous buckling transition in thin layers of monodomain nematic liquid crystalline gel was observed by polarized light microscopy. The coupling between the orientational ordering of liquid crystalline solvent and the translational…
Spilling tea or coffee leads to a tell-tale circular stain after the droplet dries, known as the "coffee ring effect". The evaporation of suspension droplets is a complex physical process, and predicting and controlling the particle deposit…
Controlling the shape and position of moving and pinned droplets on a solid surface is an important feature often found in microfluidic applications. However, automating them, e.g., for high-throughput applications, does rarely involve…
We examine the shape of droplets atop deformable thin elastomeric films prepared with an anisotropic tension. As the droplets generate a deformation in the taut film through capillary forces, they assume a shape that is elongated along the…
One of the central experimental efforts in nematic colloids research aims to explore how the interplay between the geometry of particles along with the accompanying nematic director deformations and defects around them can provide a means…
Active-elastic instabilities are common phenomena in the natural world which have the aspect of sudden mechanical morphings. Frequently, the driving force of the instability mechanisms has a chemo-mechanical nature which makes these kind of…
Emerging technologies based on liquid crystal (LC) materials increasingly leverage the presence of nanoscale defects, unlike the canonical application of LCs -- LC displays. The inherent nanoscale characteristics of LC defects present both…
Cell crawling crucially depends on the collective dynamics of the acto-myosin cytoskeleton. However, it remains an open question to what extent cell polarization and persistent motion depend on continuous regulatory mechanisms and…
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…
Suspended droplets of cholesteric (chiral nematic) liquid crystals spontaneously rotate in the presence of a heat flux due to a temperature gradient, a phenomenon known as Lehmann effect. So far, it is not clear whether this effect is due…
In this experimental and theoretical study, we examine the equilibrium shapes of quasitwo-dimensional twist-bend nematic (Ntb) drops formed within a planarly aligned nematic layer of the liquid crystal CB7CB. Initially, at the setting point…
Most theoretical descriptions of lyotropic cholesteric liquid crystals to date focus on homogeneous systems in which the rod concentration, as opposed to the rod orientation, is uniform. In this work, we build upon the Onsager-Straley…
In the last years self-motile droplets attracted the attention of scientists from different fields ranging from applied biology to theoretical physics, because of their promising technological applications and important biological…
Active fluids are a class of non-equilibrium systems where energy is injected into the system continuously by the constituent particles themselves. Many examples, such as bacterial suspensions and actomyosin networks, are intrinsically…
Flagellated microswimmers B. Subtilis dispersed in a nematic phase of a lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal form a living liquid crystal (LLC). The combination of the passive and active components allows us to analyze how the active…