Related papers: Shaping thin nematic films with competing boundary…
The morphological evolution of hillocks at the unpassivated sidewalls of the single crystal metallic thin films is investigated via computer simulations by using the free-moving boundary value problem. The effects of the drift-diffusion…
We study the director field around a spherical particle immersed in a uniformly aligned nematic liquid crystal and assume that the molecules prefer a homeotropic orientation at the surface of the particle. Three structures are possible: a…
In recent years, slippery surfaces have attracted significant interest due to their excellent liquid-repellent properties and their potential in diverse commercial applications. Such surfaces are prepared by coating functionalized solid…
The spreading of a thin film of suspension on a spinning disk and the accompanying contact line instability is studied through flow visualization experiments. The critical radius for the onset of instability shows an increase with increase…
We study DC and AC electrophoresis of silica micro and nanorods in a thin film of a nematic liquid crystal. These particles induce virtual topological defects and also demonstrate nontrivial electrophoresis in a nematic liquid crystal. We…
The anchoring of nematic liquid crystals on surfaces with grafted liquid crystalline chain molecules is studied by computer simulations and within a mean field approach. The computer simulations show that a swollen layer of collectively…
In recent years, there has been a considerable interest in the mechanics of soft objects meeting fluid interfaces (elasto-capillary interactions). In this work we experimentally examine the case of a fluid resting on a thin film of rigid…
We propose a continuum model to describe the molecular alignment in thin nematic shells. By contrast with previous accounts, the two-dimensional free energy, aimed at describing the physics of thin films of nematics deposited on curved…
We examine fluctuation-induced (pseudo-Casimir) interactions in nematic liquid-crystalline films confined between two surfaces, where one of the surfaces imposes a strong homeotropic anchoring (ensuring a uniform mean director profile),…
We present numerical and analytic results for uniaxial and biaxial order at the isotropic-nematic interface within Ginzburg-Landau-de Gennes theory. We study the case where an oblique anchoring condition is imposed asymptotically on the…
We analyse the homogeneous instabilities in a nematic liquid crystal subjected to plane steady Couette or Poiseuille flow in the case when the director is pre-aligned perpendicular to the flow plane taking into account weak anchoring at the…
The newly-discovered ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal exhibits a variety of unique defect phenomena. The depolarization field in the material favors spontaneous spatial variations in polarization, manifesting in diverse forms such as…
The topology and the geometry of a surface play a fundamental role in determining the equilibrium configurations of thin films of liquid crystals. We propose here a theoretical analysis of a recently introduced surface Frank energy, in the…
We present a theoretical model and experimental demonstration of thin liquid film deformations due to a dielectric force distribution established by surface electrodes. We model the spatial electric field produced by a pair of parallel…
We report on the capillary-driven levelling of a topographical perturbation at the surface of a free-standing liquid nanofilm. The width of a stepped surface profile is found to evolve as the square root of time. The hydrodynamic model is…
Recent experiments of thin films flowing down a vertical fiber with varying nozzle diameters present a wealth of new dynamics that illustrate the need for more advanced theory. We present a detailed analysis using a full lubrication model…
The instability, dynamics and morphological transitions of patterns in thin liquid films on periodic striped surfaces (consisting of alternating less and more wettable stripes) are investigated based on 3-D nonlinear simulations that…
The ordering of rod-like particles in soft, deformable containers emerges from the interplay of anisotropic interactions, geometric confinement, and boundary compliance. This competition couples internal particle organization to container…
Self-assembly of colloidal particles due to elastic interactions in nematic liquid crystals promises tunable composite materials and can be guided by exploiting surface functionalization, geometric shape and topology, though these means of…
A nematic liquid-crystal gel is a macroscopically homogeneous elastic medium with the rotational symmetry of a nematic liquid crystal. In this paper, we develop a general approach to the study of these gels that incorporates all underlying…