Related papers: Modulated nematic structures and chiral symmetry b…
We present a theoretical study of the interaction between an atom characterized by a degenerate ground state and a reciprocal environment, such as a semiconductor nanoparticle, without the presence of external bias. Our analysis reveals…
Monte Carlo molecular simulations of curve-shaped rods show the propensity of such shapes to polymorphism revealing both smectic and polar nematic phases. The nematic exhibits a nanoscale modulated local structure characterized by a unique,…
Many physical systems involve two types of orientational order, which are coupled together. For example, ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals have coupled polar and nematic order, and tilted hexatic phases have coupled polar and hexatic…
The thermally activated magnetic relaxation in two-dimensional ensembles of dipolar interacting nanoparticles with large uniaxial perpendicular anisotropy is studied by a numerical method and within the mean-field approximation. The role…
In the presence of a non-adsorbing polymer, monodisperse rod-like particles assemble into colloidal membranes, which are one rod-length thick liquid-like monolayers of aligned rods. Unlike 3D edgeless bilayer vesicles, colloidal monolayer…
Ferroelectric nematic phases are a new class of polar fluids in which spontaneous polarization is directly coupled to the orientational order, providing unique opportunities for creating self-organized materils with spatially modulated…
Simulations of nematic-isotropic transition of liquid crystals in two dimensions are performed using an O(2) vector model characterised by non linear nearest neighbour spin interaction governed by the fourth Legendre polynomial $P\_4$. The…
In continuum mechanics, the non-centrosymmetric micropolar theory is usually used to capture the chirality inherent in materials. However when reduced to a two dimensional (2D) isotropic problem, the resulting model becomes non-chiral.…
It is known that the chiral interaction described by Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DMI) term lead to the plethora of topological structures of magnetic spins, such as helical or skyrmion phases. Here we present the that analogues electrical DMI…
The biaxial phase in nematic liquid crystals has been elusive for several decades after its prediction in the 1970s. A recent experimental breakthrough was achieved by Liu et al. [PNAS 113, 10479 (2016)] in a liquid crystalline medium with…
The singular potential method in the Q tensor order parameter representation is used to determine the ground state configuration of an elastically anisotropic nematic liquid crystal when confined to a cylindrical geometry with homeotropic…
In the hexagonal columnar phase of chiral polymers a bias towards cholesteric twist competes with braiding along an average direction. When the chirality is strong, topological defects proliferate, leading to either a tilt grain boundary…
Field-induced reorientation of colloidal particles is especially relevant to manipulate the optical properties of a nanomaterial for target applications. We have recently shown that surprisingly feeble external stimuli are able to transform…
Complex spin configurations in magnetic materials, ranging from collinear single-Q to noncoplanar multi-Q states, exhibit rich symmetry and chiral properties. However, their detailed characterization is often hindered by the limited spatial…
Bipartite quantum systems from the chiral universality classes admit topologically protected zero modes at point defects. However, in two-dimensional systems these states can be difficult to separate from compacton-like localized states…
We present a model to describe complex phases observed at mesoscopic scales in ultrathin magnetic films. The model is based on the interaction between dipolar as well as quadrupolar magnetic moments. In the special case of strong…
We theoretically study the phase behaviour of monolayers of hard rod-plate mixtures using a fundamental-measure density functional in the restricted-orientation (Zwanzig) approximation. We consider both species to be subject to an…
A singular configuration of external static magnetic field in the form of a pointlike vortex polarizes the vacuum of quantized massless spinor field in 2+1-dimensional space-time. This results in an analogue of the Bohm-Aharonov effect: the…
The rich mesophase polymorhism and the phase sequence of board-like colloids depends critically on their shape anisometry. Implementing extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we calculated the full phase diagram of sterically interacting…
Active forces occurring within cells can drive crucial biological processes that involve spontaneous organization and shape change, such as cell division. Motivated by recent in vitro experiments of nematic droplets of cytoskeletal…