Related papers: Shaping thin nematic films with competing boundary…
We consider a class of liquid crystal free-boundary problems for which both the equilibrium shape and internal configuration of a system must simultaneously be determined, for example in films with air- or fluid-liquid crystal interfaces…
The stability of liquid films coating the walls of a parallel-plate channel and sheared by a pressure-driven gas flow along the channel centre is studied. The films are susceptible to a long-wavelength instability, whose dynamic behaviour…
Nematic liquid crystals confined to geometrically as well as chemically patterned substrate on one end and a flat substrate with strong anchoring on the other is studied using non-Boltzmann Monte Carlo methods. We observe significant…
Topological defects, such as disclination lines in nematic liquid crystals, are fundamental to many physical systems and applications. In this work, we study the behavior of nematic disclinations in thin parallel-plate geometries with…
Long-scale dynamic fluctuation phenomena in freely suspended films is analyzed. We consider isotropic films that, say, can be pulled from bulk smectic A liquid crystals. The key feature of such objects is possibility of bending deformations…
Confinement breaks the translational symmetry of materials. Such symmetry breaking can be used to obtain configurations that are not otherwise accessible in the bulk. Here, we explore the effect of substrate-liquid interactions on the…
We consider the steady-state analysis of a pinned elastic plate lying on the free surface of a thin viscous fluid, forced by the motion of a bottom substrate moving at constant speed. A mathematical model incorporating elasticity,…
Monte Carlo simulation, experiment and continuum theory are used to examine the anchoring exhibited by a nematic liquid crystal at a patterned substrate comprising a periodic array of rectangles that, respectively, promote vertical and…
To make progress towards the development of a theory on the motion of inclusions in thin structured films and membranes, we here consider as an initial step a circular disk in a two-dimensional, uniaxially anisotropic fluid layer. We assume…
Anisotropic rod-like particles form liquid crystalline phases with varying degrees of orientational and translational order. When confined geometrically, these phases can give rise to topological defects, which can be selected and…
Instabilities of fluid-fluid interfaces are ubiquitous in passive soft matter. Adding activity to the interface or either fluid can dramatically change the stability of the interface. Using experiment and theory, we investigate the…
We investigate the relaxation of rectangular wrinkled thin films intrinsically containing an initial strain gradient. A preferential rolling direction, depending on wrinkle geometry and strain gradient, is theoretically predicted and…
Capillary microflows of liquid crystal phases are central to material, biological and bio-inspired systems. Despite their fundamental and applied significance, a detailed understanding of the stationary behaviour of nematic liquid crystals…
Liquid crystal elastomers are cross-linked polymer networks covalently bonded with liquid crystal mesogens. In the nematic phase, due to strong coupling between mechanical strain and orientational order, these materials display…
We study the indentation of a thin elastic film floating at the surface of a liquid. We focus on the onset of radial wrinkles at a threshold indentation depth and the evolution of the wrinkle pattern as indentation progresses far beyond…
We study the equilibrium shapes of vesicles, with an in-plane nematic order, using a Monte-Carlo scheme and show that highly curved shapes, like tubes and discs, with a striking similarity to the structures engendered by certain curvature…
The ordering of nanoparticles into predetermined configurations is of importance to the design of advanced technologies. In this work, we moderate the surface anchoring against the bulk elasticity of liquid crystals to dynamically shape…
The effect of confinement on the orientational structure of a nematic liquid crystal model has been investigated by using a version of density-functional theory (DFT). We have focused on the case of a nematic confined by opposing flat…
We study spreading dynamics of nematic liquid crystal droplets within the framework of the long-wave approximation. A fourth order nonlinear parabolic partial differential equation governing the free surface evolution is derived. The…
We study ionic and mass transport in a liquid crystalline fluid film in its nematic phase under an applied electrostatic field. Both analytic and numerical solutions are given for some prototypical configurations of interest in…