Related papers: The Geometry of the Cholesteric Phase
Experimentally it is possible to manipulate the director in a (chiral) smectic-$A$ elastomer using an electric field. This suggests that the director is not necessarily locked to the layer normal, as described in earlier papers that…
We have investigated the relationship between the morphology of helical particles and the features of the cholesteric (N$^\ast $) phase that they form. Using an Onsager-like theory, applied to systems of hard helices, we show that the…
We propose and study a local map capable of describing the full variety of dynamical states, ranging from regular to chaotic, obtained when a nematic liquid crystal is subjected to a steady shear flow. The map is formulated in terms of a…
A system that possesses translational symmetry but breaks orientational symmetry is known as a nematic phase. While there are many examples of nematic phases in a wide range of contexts, such as in liquid crystals, complex oxides, and…
In the hexagonal columnar phase of chiral polymers a bias towards cholesteric twist competes with braiding along an average direction. When the chirality is strong, topological defects proliferate, leading to either a tilt grain boundary…
A continuum mechanical framework is developed for determining a) the class of stress-free deformed shapes and corresponding director distributions on the undeformed configuration of a nematic glass membrane that has a prescribed spontaneous…
We describe the geometry of bend distortions in twist-bend nematic liquid crystals in terms of their fundamental degeneracies, which we call $\beta$ lines. These represent a new class of line-like topological defect. We use them to…
Stochastic dynamics is generated by a matrix of transition probabilities. Certain eigenvectors of this matrix provide observables, and when these are plotted in the appropriate multi-dimensional space the phases (in the sense of phase…
We consider the orientational instabilities, both homogeneous and spatially periodic, developing in a nematic liquid crystal under rectilinear oscillatory Couette flow for director alignment perpendicular to the flow plane. Using numerical…
The phase-field-crystal model is used to access the structure and thermodynamics of interfaces between two coexisting liquid crystalline phases in two spatial dimensions. Depending on the model parameters there is a variety of possible…
The geometric shape, symmetry, and topology of colloidal particles often allow for controlling colloidal phase behavior and physical properties of these soft matter systems. In liquid crystalline dispersions, colloidal particles with low…
Textures (i.e., smooth space non-uniform distributions of the order parameter) in biaxial nematics turned out to be much more difficult and interesting than expected. Scanning the literature we find only a very few publications on this…
When a chiral isotropic elastomer is brought to low temperature cholesteric phase, the nematic degree of freedom tends to order and form a helix. Due to the nemato-elastic coupling, this also leads to elastic deformation of the polymer…
We formulate a simple Landau type model describing macroscopic behaviour recently discovered new smectic phases composed of achiral bent-shaped molecules. Films of such smectics exhibit three types of ordering related to dipole…
Using molecular simulations and classical density functional theory, we study the liquid-crystalline phase behaviour of a series of bent rod-like mesogens with a controlled degree of chirality introduced through a twist at the centre of the…
A two-dimensional or quasi-two-dimensional nematic liquid crystal refers to a surface confined system. When such a system is further confined by external line boundaries or excluded from internal line boundaries, the nematic directors form…
Topological defects provide a unifying language to describe how orientational order breaks down in active and living matter. Considering cells as elongated particles confluent, epithelial tissues can be interpreted as nematic fields and its…
In this paper we are interested in the Landau-de Gennes functional introduced to study the transition between the smectic and nematic phases of a liquid crystal. We define a reduced functional by constraining the director field to satisfy a…
Topological defects are ubiquitous on surfaces with orientational order fields. Here, we study equilibrium states generated by the feedback between geometry and nematic order on fluid membranes with an integer topological defect. When the…
Vibrated monolayers of granular particles confined into horizontal cavities form a variety of fluid patterns with orientational order that resemble equilibrium liquid-crystal phases. In some cases one can identify nematic and smectic…