Related papers: Knotted Defects in Nematic Liquid Crystals
We investigate the dynamics of active nematic liquid crystals on deformable membranes, focusing on the interplay between active stress and anisotropic curvature coupling. Using a minimal model, we simulate the coupled evolution of the…
A nematic liquid crystal confined to the surface of a sphere exhibits topological defects of total charge $+2$ due to the topological constraint. In equilibrium, the nematic field forms four $+1/2$ defects, located at the corners of a…
We study theoretically the instabilities induced by a linearly polarized ordinary light wave incident at a small oblique angle on a thin layer of homeotropically oriented nematic liquid crystal with special emphasis on the dye-doped case.…
We investigate theoretically the wetting properties of cholesteric liquid crystals at a planar substrate. If the properties of substrate and of the interface are such that the cholesteric layers are not distorted the wetting properties are…
Monopole-like electrostatic interactions are ubiquitous in biology and condensed matter, but they are often screened by counter-ions and cannot be switched from attractive to repulsive. In colloidal science, where the prime goal is to…
The translation and shape deformations of a passive viscous Newtonian droplet immersed in an active nematic liquid crystal under circular confinement are analyzed using a linear stability analysis. We focus on the case of a sharply aligned…
Colloidal particles suspended in liquid crystals can exhibit various effective anisotropic interactions that can be tuned and utilized in self-assembly processes. We simulate a two-dimensional system of hard disks suspended in a solution of…
Topological defects in systems with liquid-crystalline order are crucial in determining their large-scale properties. In active systems, they are known to have properties impossible at equilibrium: for example, $+1/2$ defects in…
We predict the existence of a new defect-lattice phase near the nematic - smectic-C (NC) transition. This tilt- analogue of the blue phase is a lattice of double-tilt cylinders. We discuss the structure and stability of the cone phase. We…
Liquid crystalline networks (LCNs) are stimuli-responsive materials formed from polymeric chains cross-linked with rod-like mesogenic segments, which, in the nematic phase, align along a non-polar director. A key characteristic of these…
After more than 70 years of development, holography has become an essential tool of modern optics in many applications. In fact, for various applications of different kinds of holographic techniques, stability and antijamming ability are…
Topological order in strongly correlated systems, including quantum spin liquids, quantum Hall states in lattices and topological superconductivity is treated. Various metallic non-Fermi-liquid states are discussed, including fractionalized…
Abundant in nature, colloids also find increasingly important applications in science and technology, ranging from direct probing of kinetics in crystals and glasses to fabrication of third-generation quantum-dot solar cells. Because…
We address the physics of nematic liquid crystalline elastomers randomly crosslinked in the isotropic state. To do this, we construct a phenomenological effective replica Hamiltonian in terms of two order-parameter fields: one for the…
In complex crystals close to melting or at finite temperatures, different types of defects are ubiquitous and their role becomes relevant in the mechanical response of these solids. Conventional elasticity theory fails to provide a…
Drying of colloidal droplets on solid, rigid substrates is associated with a capillary pressure developing within the droplet. In due course of time, the capillary pressure builds up due to droplet evaporation resulting in the formation of…
We develop a formal analogy between configurational stresses in two distinct physical systems, and study the flows that they induce when the configurations of interest include topological de- fects. The two systems in question are…
We present a theoretical study of the director fields and energetics of nematic liquid crystal shells with two pairs of surface defects. The pairs of defects can undergo abrupt transitions between a configuration of maximum separation to at…
We present a lattice Boltzmann algorithm for liquid crystal hydrodynamics. The coupling between the tensor order parameter and the flow is treated consistently allowing investigation of a wide range of non-Newtonian flow behavior. We…
Chromonic liquid crystals (CLCs) are lyotropic materials which are attracting growing interest for their adaptability to living systems. A considerable body of works has been devoted to exploring their properties and applications. In this…