Related papers: Ring around the colloid
We report experimental and simulation studies of the structure of a monolayer of indented ("lock and key") colloids, on a planar surface. On adding a non-absorbing polymer with prescribed radius and volume fraction, depletion interactions…
We study cholesteric order in liquid crystal shells with planar degenerate anchoring. We observe that the bipolar and radial configurations intensively reported for bulk droplets have a higher degree of complexity when the liquid crystal is…
In this paper we revisit the problem of a nematic liquid crystal in contact with patterned substrates. The substrate is modelled as a periodic array of parallel infinite grooves of well-defined cross section sculpted on a chemically…
Crystalline defects can modify quantum interactions in solids, causing unintuitive, even favourable, properties such as quantum Hall effect or superconducting vortex pinning. Here we present another example of this notion - an unexpected…
We calculate the interaction between two spherical colloidal particles embedded in the isotropic phase of a nematogenic liquid. The surface of the particles induces wetting nematic coronas that mediate an elastic interaction. In the weak…
Chiral nematic or cholesteric liquid crystals (LCs) are mesophases with long-ranged orientational order featuring a quasi-layered periodicity imparted by a helical configuration but lacking positional order. Doping molecular cholesteric LCs…
We theoretically investigate the threshold for the director reorientation from the homeotropic state to the hybrid homeotropic-planar state and vice versa in a cell filled with a flexoelectric nematic liquid crystal (NLC) subjected to an…
Here we study theoretically the dynamics of a 2D and a 3D isotropic droplet in a nematic liquid crystal under a shear flow. We find a large repertoire of possible nonequilibrium steady states as a function of the shear rate and of the…
We demonstrate that migration away from self-produced chemicals (chemorepulsion) generates a generic route to clustering and pattern formation among self-propelled colloids. The clustering instability can be caused either by anisotropic…
Recent experiments have shown that colloidal suspensions can spontaneously self-assemble into dense clusters of various internal structures, sizes and dynamical properties when doped with active Janus particles. Characteristically, these…
Colloidal particles in liquid crystals tend to induce topological defects and distortions of the molecular alignment within the surrounding anisotropic host medium, which results in elasticity-mediated interactions not accessible to their…
From studies via Molecular Dynamics simulations, we report results on structure and dynamics in mixtures of active colloids and passive polymers that are confined inside a spherical container with a repulsive boundary. Such systems mimic…
We perform numerical simulations of a simple model of one-patch colloidal particles to investigate: (i) the behavior of the gas-liquid phase diagram on moving from a spherical attractive potential to a Janus potential and (ii) the…
Topological defects are a conspicuous feature of active liquid crystals that have been associated with important morphogenetic transitions in organismal development. Robust development thus requires a tight control of the motion and…
Disklike molecules with aromatic cores spontaneously stack up in linear columns with high, one-dimensional charge carrier mobilities along the columnar axes making them prominent model systems for functional, self-organized matter. We show…
Non-equilibrium dynamics of topological defects can be used as a fundamental propulsion mechanism in microscopic active matter. Here, we demonstrate swimming of topological defect-propelled colloidal particles in (passive) nematic fluids…
Handedness of the director twist in cholesteric liquid crystals is commonly assumed to be the same throughout the medium, determined solely by the chirality of constituent molecules or chiral additives, albeit distortions of the…
The role of boundary layers in conventional liquid crystals is commonly subsumed in their anchoring on confining walls. In the classical view, anchoring enslaves the orientational field of the passive material under equilibrium conditions.…
Colloidal particles disturb the alignment of rod-like molecules of liquid crystals, giving rise to long-range interactions that minimize the free energy of distorted regions. Particle shape and topology are known to guide this self-assembly…
Liquid crystals can self-organize into a layered smectic phase. While the smectic layers are typically straight forming a lamellar pattern in bulk, external confinement may drastically distort the layers due to the boundary conditions…