Related papers: Flexoelectric switching in cholesteric blue phases
Blue phases are networks of disclination lines, which occur in cholesteric liquid crystals near the transition to the isotropic phase. They have recently been used for the new generation of fast switching liquid crystal displays. Here we…
We describe the occurence and properties of liquid crystal phases showing two dimensional splay and bend distortions which are stabilised by flexoelectric interactions. These phases are characterised by regions of locally double splayed…
We review recent numerical work investigating the equilibrium phase diagram, and the dynamics, of the cholesteric blue phases. In equilibrium numerical results confirm the predictions of the classic analytical theories, and extend them to…
Blue phases (BPs) are liquid crystals made up by networks of defects, or disclination lines. While existing phase diagrams show a striking variety of competing metastable topologies for these networks, very little is known as to how to…
We study the behaviour of confined cubic blue phases under shear flow via lattice Boltzmann simulations. We focus on the two experimentally observed phases, blue phase I and blue phase II. The disinclination network of blue phase II…
Blue phases of cholesteric liquid crystals offer a spectacular example of naturally occurring disclination line networks. Here we numerically solve the hydrodynamic equations of motion to investigate the response of three types of blue…
We report large scale simulations of the blue phases of cholesteric liquid crystals. Our results suggest a structure for blue phase III, the blue fog, which has been the subject of a long debate in liquid crystal physics. We propose that…
We show theoretically that flexoelectricity stabilizes blue phases in chiral liquid crystals. Induced internal polarization reduces the elastic energy cost of splay and bend deformations surrounding singular lines in the director field. The…
We present extensive numerical studies to determine the phase diagrams of cubic and hexagonal blue phases in an electric field. We confirm the earlier prediction that hexagonal phases, both 2 and 3 dimensional, are stabilized by a field,…
We study the behaviour of cubic blue phases under shear flow via lattice Boltzmann simulations. We focus on the two experimentally observed phases, Blue Phase I (BPI) and Blue Phase II (BPII). The disclination network of Blue Phase II…
We study the static properties of cubic blue phases by numerically minimising the three-dimensional, Landau-de Gennes free energy for a cholesteric liquid crystal close to the isotropic-cholesteric phase transition. Thus we are able to…
We numerically investigate the phase behavior of thick shells of cholesteric liquid crystals with tangential anchoring at the shell boundary. For achiral liquid crystal, we demonstrate a thickness-dependent transition from a configuration…
Complex materials encompassing different phases of matter can display new photoinduced metastable states differing from those attainable under equilibrium conditions. These states can be realized when energy is injected in the material…
We study both theoretically and experimentally switching dynamics in surface stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystal cells with asymmetric boundary conditions. In these cells the bounding surfaces are treated differently to produce…
Mesogenic dimers in the twist-bend nematic phase exhibit much higher flexoelectric polarization than in their uniform nematic phase. In order to theoretically investigate this data, we extend the symmetry based linear elastic theory of the…
During the last half-decade, a new class of ferroic-fluid, ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals (NFLCs), creates a noise owing to its exceptional properties such as a colossal polarization, high electro-optic activity plus high fluidity.…
The morphology of spherically confined flexoelectric fluid membrane vesicles in an external uniform electric field is studied numerically. Due to the deformations induced by the confinement, the membrane becomes polarized resulting in an…
We consider a nematic liquid crystal, in coexistence with its isotropic phase, in contact with a substrate patterned with rectangular grooves. In such a system, the nematic phase may fill the grooves without the occurrence of complete…
We report on a novel method of dynamically controlling the boundary conditions at the surface of a nematic liquid crystal using a surface flexoelectric effect. By moving the surface directors we show that one is able to manipulate defects…
We investigate numerically the behaviour of a phase-separating mixture of a blue phase I liquid crystal with an isotropic fluid. The resulting morphology is primarily controlled by an inverse capillary number, $\chi$, setting the balance…