Related papers: Nematic Films at Chemically Structured Surfaces
Using an interface displacement model derived from a microscopic density functional theory we investigate thin liquidlike wetting layers adsorbed on flat substrates with an embedded chemical heterogeneity forming a stripe. For a wide range…
Using an interface displacement model we calculate the shapes of thin liquidlike films adsorbed on flat substrates containing a chemical stripe. We determine the entire phase diagram of morphological phase transitions in these films as…
The instability, dynamics and morphological transitions of patterns in thin liquid films on periodic striped surfaces (consisting of alternating less and more wettable stripes) are investigated based on 3-D nonlinear simulations that…
It is known from both experiments and molecular dynamics simulations that chemically patterning a solid surface has an effect on the flow of an adjacent liquid. This fact is in stark contrast with predictions of classical fluid mechanics…
We discuss instabilities of fluid films of nanoscale thickness, with a particular focus on films where the destabilising mechanism allows for linear instability, metastability, and absolute stability. Our study is motivated by nematic…
We report molecular dynamics simulation results on the equilibrium properties of polymer thin films adsorbed onto flat and curved substrates. We first systematically determine the contact angle of polymer droplets on flat substrates as a…
We consider a thin film limit of a Landau-de Gennes Q-tensor model. In the limiting process we observe a continuous transition where the normal and tangential parts of the Q-tensor decouple and various intrinsic and extrinsic contributions…
Based on a microscopic density functional theory we investigate the morphology of thin liquidlike wetting films adsorbed on substrates endowed with well-defined chemical heterogeneities. As paradigmatic cases we focus on a single chemical…
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 formulate a theoretical model of the shear failure of a thin film tethered to a rigid substrate. The interface between film and substrate is modeled as a cohesive layer with randomly fluctuating shear strength/fracture energy. We…
Liquid crystal networks exploit the coupling between the responsivity of liquid-crystalline mesogens, e.g., to electric fields, and the (visco)elastic properties of a polymer network. Because of this, these materials have been put forward…
Uniaxial nematic liquid crystals whose molecular orientation is subjected to a tangential anchoring on a curved surface offer a non trivial interplay between the geometry and the topology of the surface and the orientational degree of…
When a liquid film lies on a non-wettable substrate, the configuration is unstable and the film then retracts from a solid substrate to form droplets. This phenomenon, known as dewetting, commonly leads to undesirable morphological changes.…
I study numerically the problem of delamination of a thin film elastically attached to a rigid substrate. A nominally flat elastic thin film is modeled using a two-dimensional triangular mesh. Both compression and bending rigidities are…
Nematic solids respond strongly to changes in ambient heat or light, significantly differently parallel and perpendicular to the director. This phenomenon is well characterized for uniform director fields, but not for defect textures. We…
Nematic interfaces are thin fluid films, ideally two-dimensional, endowed with an in-plane degenerate nematic order. In this letter we examine a generalisation of the classical Plateau problem to an axisymmetric nematic interface bounded by…
We consider patterns formed in a two-dimensional thin film on a planar substrate with a Derjaguin disjoining pressure and periodic wettability stripes. We rigorously clarify some of the results obtained numerically by Honisch et al. and…
We construct the complete structural phase diagram of polymer adsorption at substrates with attractive stripe-like patterns in the parameter space spanned by the adsorption affinity of the stripes and temperature. Results were obtained by…
The interplay between active matter and its environment is central to understanding emergent behavior in biological and synthetic systems. Here, we show that coupling active nematic flows to small-amplitude deformations of a compliant…
We study theoretically the formation of long-wavelength instability patterns observed at spreading of nematic droplets on liquid substrates. The role of surface-like elastic terms such as saddle-splay and anchoring in nematic films of…