Related papers: Nemato-elastic crawlers
A self-interacting polymer can undergo an orientational ordering transition, depending on the magnitude of the nematic interaction. The effect of embedding such a polymer into a flexible surface on this transition is studied on the…
The study of liquid crystals at equilibrium has led to fundamental insights into the nature of ordered materials, as well as to practical applications such as display technologies. Active nematics are a fundamentally different class of…
The morphological dynamics, instabilities and transitions of elastic filaments in viscous flows underlie a wealth of biophysical processes from flagellar propulsion to intracellular streaming, and are also key to deciphering the rheological…
We explore a novel strategy of patterning nematic elastomers that does not require inscribing the texture directly. It is based on varying the dopant concentration that, beside shifting the phase transition point, affects the nematic…
Cell crawling crucially depends on the collective dynamics of the acto-myosin cytoskeleton. However, it remains an open question to what extent cell polarization and persistent motion depend on continuous regulatory mechanisms and…
The nonlinear elastic properties of nematic liquid crystals have acquired new interest with the recent experimental observation of bulk modulated nematic phases which are composed by achiral molecules. We extend the Oseen-Zocher-Frank's…
We perform dynamical simulations of a two-dimensional active nematic fluid in coexistence with an isotropic fluid. Drops of active nematic become elongated, and an effective anchoring develops at the nematic-isotropic interface. The…
The effect of short chain grafting on the liquid crystalline (LC) ordering of nano-crystals is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations of a coarse-grained grafted nano-rod model. Monodisperse nano-rods, with aspect ratios typical…
We derive a mathematical model of a nematic electrolyte based on a variational formulation of nematodynamics. Extending our previous work, we consider a general setup which incorporates dielectric anisotropy of the liquid-crystalline matrix…
The sliding friction force exerted by stochastic linkers interacting with a moving filament is calculated. The elastic properties of the substrate on which the linkers are anchored are shown to strongly influence the friction force. In some…
Uniaxial elastomers are characterized by five elastic constants. If their elastic modulus C_5 describing the energy of shear strains in planes containing the anisotropy axis vanishes, they are said to be soft. In spatial dimensions d less…
We report on the dynamics of a model frictional system submitted to minute external perturbations. The system consists of a chain of sliders connected through elastic springs that rest on an incline. By introducing cyclic expansions and…
We study the role of the control parameter triggering nematic order (temperature or concentration) on the dynamical behavior of a system of nanorods under shear. Our study is based on a set of mesoscopic equations of motion for the…
We provide a quantitative description of the helicoid--to--spiral transition in thin ribbons of nematic elastomers using an elementary calculation based on a Koiter-type plate with incompatible reference configuration. Our calculation…
A living cell actively generates traction forces on its environment with its actin cytoskeleton. These forces deform the cell elastic substrate which, in turn, affects the traction forces exerted by the cell and can consequently modify the…
A dynamic crack will travel in a straight path up to a material-dependent critical speed beyond which its path becomes erratic. Predicting this critical speed and discovering the origin of this instability are two outstanding problems in…
The biopolymers actin and microtubules are often in an ongoing assembling/disassembling state far from thermal equilibrium. Above a critical density this leads to spatially periodic patterns, as shown by a scaling argument and in terms of a…
In this paper, we discuss the equilibrium phases and collapse transitions of a lyotropic nematic gel immersed in an isotropic solvent. A nematic gel consists of a cross-linked polymer network with rod-like molecules embedded in it. Upon…
The field of active nematics has traditionally employed descriptions based on dipolar activity, with interactions that align along a single axis. However, it has been theoretically predicted that interactions with a substrate, prevalent in…
An intermediate nematic phase is proposed for the interpretation of recent experimental results on phase biaxiality in bent-core nematics. The phase is macroscopically uniaxial but consists of microscopic biaxial, and possibly polar,…