Related papers: Shaping thin nematic films with competing boundary…
We stabilize nematic droplets with handles against surface-tension-driven instabilities using a yield-stress material as outer fluid and study the complex nematic textures and defect structures that result from the competition between…
We study a two-dimensional variational problem which arises as a thin-film limit of the Landau-de Gennes energy of nematic liquid crystals. We impose an oblique angle condition for the nematic director on the boundary, via boundary…
We examine the shape of droplets atop deformable thin elastomeric films prepared with an anisotropic tension. As the droplets generate a deformation in the taut film through capillary forces, they assume a shape that is elongated along the…
Investigations of free-standing liquid films enjoy an increasing popularity due to their relevance for many fundamental and applied scientific problems. They constitute soap bubbles and foams, serve as membranes for gas transport or as…
A singular potential method in the Q tensor order parameter representation of a nematic liquid crystal is used to study the equilibrium configuration of a disclination dipole. Unlike the well studied isotropic limit (the so called one…
Pattern formation induced by wrinkling is a very common phenomenon exhibited in soft-matter substrates. In all these systems wrinkles develop in presence of compressively stressed thin films lying on compliant substrates. Here we…
A nematic membrane is a sheet with embedded orientational order, which can occur in biological cells, liquid crystal films, manufactured materials, and other soft matter systems. By formulating the free energy of nematic films using tensor…
Roughness and orientational order in thin films of anisotropic particles are investigated using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations on a cubic lattice. Anisotropic next-neighbor interactions between the lattice particles were chosen to mimic…
Active nematic fluids confined in narrow channels generate spontaneous flows when the activity is sufficiently intense. Recently, it was shown that if the molecular anchoring at the channel walls is conflicting flows are initiated even in…
Within the framework of the frozen temperature approximation we develop a strongly-nonlinear theory of one-dimensional pattern formation during directional solidification of binary mixture under nonequilibrium segregation. In the case of…
We present a large-scale molecular dynamics study of nematic-paranematic interfaces under shear. We use a model of soft repulsive ellipsoidal particles with well-known equilibrium properties, and consider interfaces which are oriented…
A body immersed in a nematic liquid crystal disturbs the fluid's preferred molecular configuration and increases its stored elastic energy. In an active nematic, the fluid components also generate a stress in the bulk fluid. By introducing…
When captured by a flat nematic-isotropic interface, colloidal particles can be dragged by it. As a result spatially periodic structures may appear, with the period depending on a particle mass, size, and interface…
The ability to synthesize and control two-dimensional (2D) crystals creates numerous opportunities for studying emergent states of matter and their novel functionalities. Freestanding films provide a particularly versatile platform for…
The known ground state of ultrathin smectic films confined to the surface of a sphere is described by four +1/2 defects assembled on a great circle and a director which follows geodesic lines. Using a simple perturbative approach we show…
One of the central experimental efforts in nematic colloids research aims to explore how the interplay between the geometry of particles along with the accompanying nematic director deformations and defects around them can provide a means…
We explore a novel strategy of patterning nematic elastomers that does not require inscribing the texture directly. It is based on varying the dopant concentration that, beside shifting the phase transition point, affects the nematic…
Ferroelectric nematic phases are a new class of polar fluids in which spontaneous polarization is directly coupled to the orientational order, providing unique opportunities for creating self-organized materils with spatially modulated…
Disclination lines in nematic liquid crystals can exist in different geometric conformations, characterised by their director profile. In certain confined, colloidal and even more prominently in chiral nematics, the director profile may…
We report on a new experimental procedure for forming and studying polar smectic liquid crystal films. A free standing smectic film is put in contact with a liquid drop, so that the film has one liquid crystal/liquid interface and one…