Related papers: Active colloids in liquid crystals
One of the intrinsic characteristics of far-from-equilibrium systems is the nonrelaxational nature of the system dynamics, which leads to novel properties that cannot be understood and described by conventional pathways based on…
Colloidal particles in liquid crystals tend to induce topological defects and distortions of the molecular alignment within the surrounding anisotropic host medium, which results in elasticity-mediated interactions not accessible to their…
Phase separation driven by nonequilibrium fluctuations is a hallmark of both living and synthetic active matter. Unlike equilibrium systems, where ordered states arise from the minimization of free energy, active systems are fueled by a…
Active matter comprised of self-propelled interacting units holds a major promise for extraction of useful work from its seemingly chaotic out-of-equilibrium dynamics. Streamlining active matter to produce work is especially important at…
Active matter exhibits striking behaviour reminiscent of living matter and molecular fluids, and has promising applications in drug delivery or mixing at the micron scale. Active colloidal systems provide important models with simple and…
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 a model colloidal liquid crystal consisting of hard spherocylinders under the influence of an external aligning potential by Langevin dynamics simulation. The external field that rotates in a plane acts on the orientation of the…
We demonstrate a variety of ordered patterns, including hexagonal structures and chains, formed by colloidal particles (droplets) at the free surface of a nematic liquid crystal (LC). The surface placement introduces a new type of particle…
We present nonlinear dynamic equations for nematic and smectic $A$ liquid crystals in the presence of an alternating electric field and explain their derivation in detail. The local electric field acting in any liquid-crystalline system is…
Active fluids exhibit spontaneous flows with complex spatiotemporal structure, which have been observed in bacterial suspensions, sperm cells, cytoskeletal suspensions, self-propelled colloids, and cell tissues. Despite occurring in the…
Natural bacterial habitats are often complex fluids with viscoelastic and anisotropic responses to stress; for example, they can take the form of liquid crystals (LCs), with elongated microscopic constituents that collectively align while…
Colloidal particles moving in a fluid interact via the induced velocity field. The collective dynamic state for a class of actively forced colloids, driven by harmonic potentials via a rule that couples forces to configurations, to perform…
A recently introduced active phase field crystal model describes the formation of ordered resting and traveling crystals in systems of self-propelled particles. Increasing the active drive, a resting crystal can be forced to perform…
Artificial soft matter systems have appeared as important tools to harness mechanical motion for microscale manipulation. Typically, this motion is driven either by the external fields or by mutual interaction between the colloids. In the…
Active materials are those in which individual, uncoordinated local stresses drive the material out of equilibrium on a global scale. Examples of such assemblies can be seen across scales from schools of fish to the cellular cytoskeleton…
Active colloids, also known as artificial microswimmers, are self-propelled micro and nanoparticles that convert uniform sources of fuel (e.g. chemical) or uniform external driving fields (e.g. magnetic or electric) into directed motion by…
Active soft matter frequently shows motility-induced phase separation (MIPS), where self-propelled particles condensate into clusters with an inner liquid-like structure. Such activity may also result in motility-induced crystallization…
Understanding and controlling the director field configuration, shape, and orientation in nematic and cholesteric liquid crystals is of fundamental importance in several branches of science. Liquid crystalline droplets, also known as…
The swimming behavior of bacteria and other microorganisms is sensitive to the physical properties of the fluid in which they swim. Mucus, biofilms, and artificial liquid-crystalline solutions are all examples of fluids with some degree of…
An active colloid is a suspension of particles that transduce free energy from their environment and use the energy to engage in intrinsically non-equilibrium activities such as growth, replication and self-propelled motility. An obvious…