Related papers: Filaments in the TGBA phase
Liquid crystalline systems exhibiting both macroscopic chirality and smectic order experience frustration resulting in mesophases possessing complex three-dimensional order. In the twist-grain-boundary phase, defect lattices mediate the…
We study the structure of the twist grain boundary in chiral smectic liquid crystals using the Landau-de Gennes model. By considering spatial variation of the smectic order, we distinguish the Melted-Grain-Boundary-A (MGBA) structure with…
Twist grain boundary (TGB) phases represent liquid crystalline systems with a regular array of defects. In our research, we studied a compound with a stable TGBC phase and established its structure by various experimental techniques. We…
During catastrophic processes of environmental variations of a thermodynamic system, such as rapid temperature decreasing, many novel and complex patterns often form. To understand such phenomena, a general mechanism is proposed based on…
The twist-grain-boundary (TGB) phases, characterized by a periodic, helical arrangement of blocks made of polar smectic phases, SmAF and SmCF, have been discovered. They have been observed for rod-like molecules with a strong longitudinal…
A series of asymmetric dimers with an odd number of atoms in the spacer were found to form different types of twisted structures despite being achiral. The formation of a variety of helical structures is accompanied by a gradual freezing of…
Liquid-liquid crystal phase separation (LLCPS) occurs in many industrial and biological settings. To date the states of the separated condensed liquid crystals have been found to be nematic, columnar, or smectic phases. Interestingly, when…
The intrinsic property of proteins to form structural motifs such as alpha-helices and beta-sheets leads to a complex phase behavior in which proteins can assemble into various types of aggregates including crystals, liquidlike phases of…
We investigate the formation of helical multifilament bundles and the torque required to achieve them as a function of applied twist. Hyperelastic filaments with circular cross sections are mounted parallel in a uniform circle onto…
Semiflexible polymers in concentrated lyotropic solution are studied within a bead-spring model by molecular dynamics simulations, focusing on the emergence of a smectic A phase and its properties. We systematically vary the density of the…
We theoretically study the conformations of a helical semi-flexible filament confined to a flat surface. This squeezed helix exhibits a variety of unexpected shapes resembling circles, waves or spirals depending on the material parameters.…
We systematically explore the self-assembly of semi-flexible polymers in deformable spherical confinement across a wide regime of chain stiffness, contour lengths and packing fractions by means of coarse-grained molecular dynamics…
We study the phase behaviour of cholesteric liquid crystal shells with different geometries. We compare the cases of tangential and no anchoring at the surface, focussing on the former case, which leads to a competition between the…
The shape assumed by a slender elastic structure is a function both of the geometry of the space in which it exists and the forces it experiences. We explore by experiments and theoretical analysis, the morphological phase-space of a…
We consider a theoretical model for the chiral smectic A twisted ribbons observed in assemblies of fd viruses condensed by depletion forces. The depletion interaction is modeled by an edge energy assumed to be proportional to the depletant…
We study the phase ordering colloids suspended in a thermotropic nematic liquid crystal below the clearing point Tni and the resulting aggregated structure. Small (150nm) PMMA particles are dispersed in a classical liquid crystal matrix,…
Filaments are key for star formation models. As part of the study carried out by the Herschel GCC Programme, here we study the filament properties presented in GCC.VII in context with theoretical models of filament formation and evolution.…
Motivated to understand the behavior of biological filaments interacting with membranes of various types, we study a theoretical model for the shape and thermodynamics of intrinsically-helical filaments bound to curved membranes. We show…
A coupled phase-field and hydrodynamic model is introduced to describe a two-phase, weakly compressible smectic (layered phase) in contact with an isotropic fluid of different density. A non-conserved smectic order parameter is coupled to a…
Grain boundaries in extremely confined colloidal smectics possess a topological fine structure with coexisting nematic and tetratic symmetry of the director field. An alternative way to approach the problem of smectic topology is via the…