Related papers: Liquid Crystals with Patterned Molecular Orientati…
A key feature of the crystallization of supercooled water confined in an applied static electric field is that the structural order here is determined not only by usual thermodynamic and kinematic factors (degree of supercooling, difference…
Catalytically active particles suspended in a liquid can move due to self-phoresis by generating solute gradients via chemical reactions of the solvent occurring at parts of their surface. Such particles can be used as carriers at the…
Electrospray technology enables external electric fields to steer charged droplets, with potential applications in fuel-air mixing and aerodynamic flow control. This study develops a computational framework that couples a steady OpenFOAM…
We report experiments that show rapid crystallization of colloids tethered to an oil-water interface in response to laser illumination. This light-induced transition is due to a combination of long-ranged thermophoretic pumping and local…
We investigate the behavior of self-propelled particles under cyclic stretching, inspired by the characteristic pattern dynamics observed in microtubule (MT) motility assays subjected to uniaxial cyclic substrate stretching. We develop a…
The ordering of nanoparticles into predetermined configurations is of importance to the design of advanced technologies. In this work, we moderate the surface anchoring against the bulk elasticity of liquid crystals to dynamically shape…
Liquid transport in microchip-based systems is important in many areas such as Laboratory-on-a-chip, Microfluidics and Optofluidics. Actuation of liquids in such systems is usually achieved using either mechanical displacement11 or via…
When viewed with a cross-polarized optical microscope (POM), liquid crystals display interference colors and complex patterns that depend on the material's microscopic orientation. That orientation can be manipulated by application of…
The acoustofluidic method holds great promise for manipulating microorganisms. When exposed to the steady vortex structures of acoustic streaming flow, these microorganisms exhibit intriguing dynamic behaviors, such as hydrodynamic trapping…
We develop a hydrodynamic description of self-generated electrolyte flow in capillaries whose bounding walls feature both non-uniform distributions of charge and non-uniform active ionic fluxes. The hydrodynamic velocity arising in such a…
Inspired by numerous lab on a chip, biomedical and bioengineering applications such as cell sorting, focusing, trapping, and filtering of particles, manipulation of micron sized particle trajectories has been of significant interest in the…
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…
We study size- and charge-asymmetric oppositely charged colloids driven by an external electric field. The large particles are connected by harmonic springs, forming a hexagonal-lattice network while the small particles are free of bonds…
The effect of an axial temperature gradient on the flow profile and the induced streaming potential of a pressure-driven symmetric electrolyte in a slit channel is investigated. Based on the non-isothermal Nernst-Planck equations as well as…
Anisotropic particles oriented in a specific direction can act as artificial atoms and molecules, and their controlled assembly can result in a wide variety of ordered structures. Towards this, we demonstrate the orientation transitions of…
The combination of large spontaneous polarization and fluidity makes the newly discovered ferroelectric nematic liquid crystalline phase (NF) responsive to electric fields in ways that have no counterpart in other materials. We probe this…
By Monte Carlo simulations of a soft ellipsoid model for liquid crystals, we study whether a layer of grafted liquid-crystalline chain molecules can induce tilt in a nematic fluid. The chains are fairly short (four monomers) and made of the…
We demonstrate the generation of diverse material flow regimes in nematic liquid cells as driven by time-variable active surface anchoring, including no-net flow, oscillatory flow, steady flow, and pulsating flow. Specifically, we…
We present a theory of the hydrodynamic forces in the drainage flow of an electrolyte between a sphere and a plane with charged surfaces. Our theory considers a thin electrolyte film which is at all times in local equilibrium across its…
Field induced assembly of reconfigurable structures with complex hierarchical configurations has recently become an area of intense research with the promise for exciting applications in programmable self-assembly and nano/microstructure…