Related papers: Elastic octopoles and colloidal structures in nema…
We describe electrophoresis of spherical dielectric particles in a uniformly aligned nematic medium with a negative dielectric anisotropy. A spherical particle that orients the liquid crystal (LC) perpendicularly to its surface moves under…
The common description of the electrical behavior of a nematic liquid crystal as an anisotropic dielectric medium with (weak) ohmic conductivity is extended to an electrodiffusion model with two active ionic species. Under appropriate, but…
Up to now it is commonly believed that a colloidal particle suspended in a nematic liquid crystal never produces elastic monopoles because this violates the mechanical equilibrium condition. And the only way to obtain deformations of…
Colloids dispersed in nematic liquid crystals form topological composites in which colloid-associated defects mediate interactions while adhering to fundamental topological constraints. Better realising the promise of such materials…
This mini-review discusses the recent contribution of theoretical and computational physics as well as experimental efforts to the understanding of the behavior of colloidal particles in confined geometries and at liquid crystalline…
The addition of enough non-adsorbing polymer to an otherwise stable colloidal suspension gives rise to a variety of phase behavior and kinetic arrest due to the depletion attraction induced between the colloids by the polymers. We report a…
Colloidal particles at complex fluid interfaces and within films assemble to form ordered structures with high degrees of symmetry via interactions that include capillarity, elasticity, and other fields like electrostatic charge. Here we…
Theoretical description of the elastic interaction between colloidal particles in NLC with incorporation of the higher order elastic terms beyond the limit of dipole and qudrupole interactions is proposed. The expression for the elastic…
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…
Many living and artificial systems show a similar emergent behavior and collective motions on different scales, starting from swarms of bacteria to synthetic active particles, herds of mammals and crowds of people. What all these systems…
Self-propelled particles possessing permanent magnetic dipole moments occur naturally in magnetotactic bacteria and in man-made systems like active colloids or micro-robots. Yet, the interplay between self-propulsion and anisotropic…
It is known that the chiral interaction described by Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DMI) term lead to the plethora of topological structures of magnetic spins, such as helical or skyrmion phases. Here we present the that analogues electrical DMI…
Ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals are formed by achiral molecules with large dipole moments. Its three-dimensional orientational order is universally described as unidirectionally polar. We demonstrate that the ground state of…
By means of computer simulations we study how droplets of hard, rod-like particles optimize their shape and internal structure under the influence of the osmotic compression caused by the presence of spherical particles that act as…
Hard models for particle interactions have played a crucial role in the understanding of the structure of condensed matter. In particular, they help to explain the formation of oriented phases in liquids made of anisotropic molecules or…
Motile liquid crystal (LC) colloids show peculiar behavior due to the high sensitivity to external stimuli driven by the LC elastic and surface effects. However, few studies focus on harnessing the LC phase transitions to propel colloidal…
We study experimentally and numerically the motion of a self-phoretic active particle in two-dimensional (2D) loosely-packed colloidal crystals at fluid interfaces. Two scenarios emerge depending on the interaction between the active…
We perform Dynamic Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the equilibrium dynamics of hard colloidal cuboids in oblate and prolate nematic liquid crystals. In particular, we characterise the particles' diffusion along the nematic director…
We investigate fluids of dipolar hard particles by a certain variant of density-functional theory. The proper treatment of the long range of the dipolar interactions yields a contribution to the free energy which favors ferromagnetic order.…
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…