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Coupling between flow and orientation is a central issue in understanding the collective dynamics of active biofilaments and cells. Active stresses generated by motor activity destroy (quasi-)long-range orientational order and induce…
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…
Control of physical behaviors of nematic colloids and colloidal crystals has been demonstrated by tuning particle shape, topology, chirality and surface charging. However, the capability of altering physical behaviors of such soft matter…
Random lasers (RL) emit light through multiple scattering in disordered gain media, typically resulting in isotropic emission with limited directionality control. Controlling RL emission direction in compact systems remains a challenge.…
Instabilities are discussed which take place when a nematic liquid crystal (LC) layer, enclosed between a planar reference plate and a photosensitive substrate, is illuminated with polarized light from the reference side ({\it reverse}…
Monopole-like electrostatic interactions are ubiquitous in biology and condensed matter, but they are often screened by counter-ions and cannot be switched from attractive to repulsive. In colloidal science, where the prime goal is to…
The effect of confinement on the orientational structure of a nematic liquid crystal model has been investigated by using a version of density-functional theory (DFT). We have focused on the case of a nematic confined by opposing flat…
"Active nematics" are orientationally ordered but apolar fluids composed of interacting constituents individually powered by an internal source of energy. When activity exceeds a system-size dependent threshold, spatially uniform active…
The general Ericksen-Leslie system for the flow of nematic liquid crystals is reconsidered in the non-isothermal case aiming for thermodynamically consistent models. The non-isothermal model is then investigated analytically. A fairly…
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…
In experiments, an individual chemically active liquid crystal (LC) droplet submerged in the bulk of a surfactant solution may self-propel along a straight, helical, or random trajectory. In this paper, we develop a minimal model capturing…
Tactoids are spindle shaped-droplets of a uniaxial nematic phase suspended in the co-existing isotropic phase. They are found in dispersions of a wide variety of elongated colloidal particles, including actin, fd virus, carbon nanotubes,…
We show that an electric field parallel to an electrically neutral surface can generate flow of electrolytic mixtures in small channels. We term this solvo-osmotic flow, since the flow is induced by the asymmetric preferential solvation of…
The first part of this paper develops a theory for the free energy of lyotropic polymer nematic liquid crystals. We use a continuum model with macroscopic elastic moduli for a polymer nematic phase. By evaluating the partition function,…
Nematic liquid crystal (LC) molecules adsorbed on two dimensional materials are aligned along the crystal directions of the hexagonal lattice. It was demonstrated that short electric pulses can reorient the aligned LC molecules in the…
When a nematic liquid crystal (LC) is confined on a self-closing spherical shell, topological constraints arise with intriguing consequences that depend critically on how the LC is aligned in the shell. We demonstrate reversible dynamic…
Colloids dispersed in nematic liquid crystals form topological composites in which colloid-associated defects mediate interactions while adhering to fundamental topological constraints. Better realising the promise of such materials…
In culture migrating and interacting amoeboid cells can form nematic liquid crystal phases. A polar nematic liquid crystal is formed if the interaction has a polar symmetry. One type of white blood cells (granulocytes) form clusters where…
Particle tracking passive microrheology in 8CB liquid crystals is used to redefine the precessional motion of the orientation of nematic director in liquid crystals. Physical origin of tumbling director in presence of presmectic clusters…
We study in detail the influence of molecular interactions on the Frank elastic constants of uniaxial nematic liquid crystals composed of molecules of cylindrical symmetry. A brief summary of the status of theoretical development for the…