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The rapid rise of artificial intelligence, and in-memory computing has reinvigorated research on scalable, energy-efficient, and reconfigurable photonic hardware. Non-volatile phase-change materials (PCMs) are attractive, as they offer…
A system that possesses translational symmetry but breaks orientational symmetry is known as a nematic phase. While there are many examples of nematic phases in a wide range of contexts, such as in liquid crystals, complex oxides, and…
Only a few years have passed since discovery of polar nematics, and now they are becoming the most actively studied liquid crystal materials. Despite numerous breakthrough findings made recently, a theoretical systematization is still…
Organic electro-optic materials have demonstrated promising performance in developing electro-optic phase shifters. Their integration with other silicon photonic processes, nanofabrication complexities, and durability remains to be…
Using fundamental measure density functional theory we investigate paranematic-nematic and nematic-nematic phase coexistence in binary mixtures of circular platelets with vanishing thicknesses. An external magnetic field induces uniaxial…
Non-Hermitian dynamics in open systems can give rise to a variety of fascinating non-equilibrium phenomena, ranging from symmetry-breaking transitions to directional energy flow. Parity-time (PT) symmetry breaking determines the occurrence…
Within the framework of Landau-de Gennes theory for nematic liquid crystals, we study the temperature-induced isotropic-nematic phase transition on a spherical shell. Below a critical temperature, a thin layer of nematic coating a…
Single crystal nematic elastomers undergo a transition from a strongly ordered phase N to an "isotropic" phase I. We show that: (a) samples produced under tension by the Finkelmann procedure are intrinsically anisotropic and should show a…
In this paper, we discuss the equilibrium phases and collapse transitions of a lyotropic nematic gel immersed in an isotropic solvent. A nematic gel consists of a cross-linked polymer network with rod-like molecules embedded in it. Upon…
We propose here a new platform for a realization of novel nonvolatile optical switching devices that takes an advantage of high field confinement provided by plasmonics and multi-state programming capabilities of chalcogenide phase change…
We demonstrate an optomechanical phase shifter. By electrostatically deflecting the nanofabricated mechanical structure, the effective index of a nearby waveguide is changed and the resulting phase shift is measured using an integrated…
We present computer simulations of long thin hard spherocylinders in a narrow planar slit. We observe a transition from the isotropic to a nematic phase with quasi-long-range orientational order upon increasing the density. This phase…
Highly integrated active nanophotonics addressing both device footprint and operation speed demands is a key enabling technology for the next generation optical networks. Plasmonic systems have proven to be a serious contender to alleviate…
We study the viscoelastic response of amorphous polymers using theory and simulations. By accounting for internal stresses and considering instantaneous normal modes (INMs) within athermal non-affine theory, we make parameter-free…
The interplay of nematic order and phase separation in solutions of semiflexible polymers in solvents of variable quality is investigated by density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We studied coarse-grained…
We investigate the nonlinear optical response of suspended 1D photonic crystal nanocavities fabricated on a silicon nitride chip. Strong thermo-optical nonlinearities are demonstrated for input powers as low as $2\,\mu\text{W}$ and a…
Optical phase-change materials are highly promising for emerging applications such as tunable metasurfaces, reconfigurable photonic circuits, and non-von Neumann computing. However, these materials typically require both high melting…
In this work, a theoretical study of phase equilibrium in mixtures of a calamitic nematic liquid crystal and hard spherical nanoparticles is presented. A mean-field thermodynamic model is used, where the interactions are considered to be…
We suggest that tunable orientational nonlinearity of nematic liquid crystals can be employed for all-optical switching in periodic photonic structures with liquid-crystal defects. We consider a one-dimensional periodic structure of Si…
We show that an atomic system in a periodically modulated optical trap displays an ideal mean-field symmetry-breaking transition. The symmetry is broken with respect to time translation by the modulation period. The transition is due to the…