Related papers: Electro-osmosis in nematic liquid crystals
The defining property of electronic nematicity -- the spontaneous breaking of rotational symmetry -- implies an unavoidable coupling between the nematic order parameter and elastic strain fields, known as nemato-elasticity. While both…
We study dynamical optical response of a nematic liquid crystal cell that undergoes the splay-bend transition after applying the voltage across the cell. We formulate a simplified model that takes into account both the flexoelectric…
Due to elastic anisotropy, two-dimensional patterning of substrates can promote weak azimuthal alignment of adjacent nematic liquid crystals. Here, we consider how such alignment can be achieved using a periodic square lattice of circular…
The paper develops a continuum theory of weak viscoelastic nematodynamics of Maxwell type. It may describe the molecular elasticity effects in mono-domain flows of liquid crystalline polymers as well as the viscoelastic effects in…
We demonstrate that a first order isotropic-to-nematic phase transition in liquid crystals can be succesfully modeled within the generalized Landau-de Gennes theory by selecting an appropriate combination of elastic constants. The numerical…
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…
Liquid crystals are synthetic and biological viscoelastic anisotropic soft matter materials that combine liquid fluidity with crystal anisotropy and find use in optical devices, sensor/actuators, lubrication, super-fibers. Frequently…
Motivated by the variety of applications in which nematic Hele-Shaw flow occurs, a theoretical model for Hele-Shaw flow of a nematic liquid crystal is formulated and analysed. We derive the thin-film Ericksen-Leslie equations that govern…
The Ericksen-Leslie model for nematic liquid crystal flows in case of an isothermal and incompressible fluid with general Leslie stress and anisotropic elasticity, i.e. with general Ericksen stress tensor, is shown for the first time to be…
Achieving control and tunability of lyotropic materials has been a long-standing goal of liquid crystal research. Here we show that the elasticity of a liquid crystal system consisting of a dense suspension of semiflexible biopolymers can…
We study colloidal particles in a nematic-liquid-crystal-filled microfluidic channel and show how elastic interactions between the particle and the channel wall lead to different particle dynamics compared with conventional microfluidics.…
Building on the striking similarity between the structure of the spindle during mitosis in living cells and nematic textures in confined liquid crystals, we use a continuum model of two-dimensional nematic liquid crystal droplets, to…
Electro-hydrodynamic phenomena in liquid crystals constitute an old but still very active research area. The reason is that these phenomena play the key role in various applications of liquid crystals and due to the general interest of…
We investigate the supercooling of a nematic liquid crystal using fluctuating non-linear hydrodynamic equations. The Martin-Siggia-Rose formalism is used to calculate renormalized transport coefficients to one-loop order. Similar theories…
We investigate theoretically and experimentally the optical beam propagation in the nematic liquid crystal with negative dielectric anisotropy, which is aligned homeotropically in a $80\mu m$-thickness planar cell in the presence of an…
Continuum models of active nematic gels have proved successful to describe a number of biological systems consisting of a population of rodlike motile subunits in a fluid environment. However, in order to get a thorough understanding of the…
Disclination configurations of a nematic liquid crystal are studied within a self-consistent molecular field theory. The theory is based on a tensor order parameter, and can accommodate anisotropic elastic energies without the known…
Electrically-controlled dynamics of fluids and particles at microscales is a fascinating area of research with applications ranging from microfluidics and sensing to sorting of biomolecules. The driving mechanisms are electric forces acting…
Free interfaces of liquid crystals tend to minimise both capillarity and anchoring forces. Here we study nematic films in planar and radial geometries with antagonistic anchoring boundary conditions and one deformable interface. Assuming a…
We study DC and AC electrophoresis of silica micro and nanorods in a thin film of a nematic liquid crystal. These particles induce virtual topological defects and also demonstrate nontrivial electrophoresis in a nematic liquid crystal. We…