Related papers: Surface induced structures in nematic liquid cryst…
Nematic liquid crystal (LC) is a partially ordered matter that has been a popular model system for studying a variety of topological behaviors in condensed matter. In this work, utilizing a spontaneously twisting achiral LC, we introduce a…
Concentrated colloidal suspensions of nanorods often exhibit liquid-crystalline (LC) behavior. The transition to a nematic LC phase, with long-range orientational order of the particles, is usually well captured by Onsager's theory for hard…
We investigate the scattering properties of spherical nanoparticles by employing a Cartesian multipole expansion method which has incorporated radiating toroidal multipoles. It is shown that toroidal dipoles, which are negligible under…
In electronic band structures, nodal lines may arise when two (or more) bands contact and form a one-dimensional manifold of degeneracy in the Brillouin zone. Around a nodal line, the dispersion for the energy difference between the bands…
Cells exert traction forces on compliant substrates and can induce surface instabilities that appear as characteristic wrinkling patterns. Here, we develop a mechanical description of cell-induced wrinkling on soft substrates using a thin…
We investigate the equilibrium properties of a colloidal solution in contact with a soft interface. As a result of symmetry breaking, surface effects are generally prevailing in confined colloidal systems. In this Letter, particular…
Colloidal interactions in nematic liquid crystals can be described as interactions between elastic multipoles that depend on particle shape, topology, chirality, boundary conditions and induced topological defects. Here, we describe a…
Spherical particles confined to a sphere surface cannot pack densely into a hexagonal lattice without defects. In this study, we use hard particle Monte Carlo simulations to determine the effects of continuously deformable shape anisotropy…
Polarization flutter, produced by an applied AC electric field drives an equilibrium ferroelectric nematic ($\mathrm{N_F}$) liquid crystal (LC) through a transition into a dissipative active ferroelectric nematic state exhibiting strong…
We study the conditions under which and how an imposed cluster of fixed colloidal particles at prescribed positions triggers crystal nucleation from a metastable colloidal fluid. Dynamical density functional theory of freezing and Brownian…
Colloidal lithography [1] is how patterns are reproduced in a variety of natural systems and is used more and more as an efficient fabrication tool in bio-, opto-, and nano-technology. Nanoparticles in the colloid are made to form a mask on…
We present results from Monte Carlo simulations of liquid crystalline dendrimers (LCDrs) adsorbed on flat, impenetrable substrates. A tractable coarse grained force field for the inter-dendritic and the dendrimer-substrate interactions is…
We characterize the director structures in electroconvection patterns of nematic liquid crystals by means of polarising microscopy. This study was stimulated by a theory put forward by Rossberg et al. (patt-sol/9701005) who propose a…
Polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) composites have long been a focus of study for their unique electro-optical properties which have resulted in various applications such as switchable (transparent/translucent) windows. These…
Despite the omnipresence of colloidal suspensions, little is known about the influence of shape on phase transformations, especially in nonequilibrium. To date, real-space imaging results are limited to systems composed of spherical…
Using Monte Carlo (MC) computer simulations we explore the self-assembly and ordering behavior of a hybrid, soft magnetic system consisting of small magnetic nano-spheres in a liquid-crystalline (LC) matrix. Inspired by recent experiments…
The formation of chiral magnetic soliton lattice (CSL) is investigated in monoaxial chiral dichalcogenide CrTa$_{3}$S$_{6}$ crystals in terms of a surface barrier, which prevents a penetration of chiral solitons into the system and is an…
Structured light beams with space-variant polarization can be efficiently generated using voltage-tunable nematic liquid-crystal (Q-plate). By appropriately selecting the input state and the retardation of the Q-plate, an optical field…
We consider a mixture of one neutral and two oppositely charged types of molecules confined to a surface. Using analytical techniques and molecular dynamics simulations, we construct the phase diagram of the system and exhibit the…
Surface-induced liquid crystalline phase transitions evoke fundamental interest and can provide deeper insight into the nature of low-dimensional phase transitions. Board-like conjugated polymers are particularly interesting because they…