Related papers: Nematic Films at Chemically Structured Surfaces
NiCo2O4 (NCO) films grown on MgAl2O4 (001) substrates have been studied using magnetometry, x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) based on x-ray absorption spectroscopy, and spin-polarized inverse photoemission spectroscopy (SPIPES) with…
Substrates which are chemically or topographically patterned induce a variety of liquid crystal textures. The response of the liquid crystal to competing surface orientations, typical of patterned substrates, is determined by the anisotropy…
Liquid crystal networks combine the orientational order of liquid crystals with the elastic properties of polymer networks, leading to a vast application potential in the field of responsive coatings, e.g., for haptic feedback,…
A theoretical study is presented of surface waves at a monomolecular surfactant film between an isotropic liquid and a nematic liquid crystal for the case when the surfactant film is in the isotropic two-dimensional fluid phase and induces…
An attractive technique for forming and collecting aggregates of magnetic material at a liquid--air interface by an applied magnetic field gradient was recently addressed theoretically and experimentally [Soft Matter, (9) 2013, 8600-8608]:…
Mechanochemical processes on surfaces such as the cellular cortex or epithelial sheets, play a key role in determining patterns and shape changes of biological systems. To understand the complex interplay of hydrodynamics and material flows…
We develop a long-wavelength theory for the linear stability of a flat interface between an active nematic and an isotropic fluid. Starting from a diffuse-interface Cahn--Hilliard--Landau--de Gennes description coupled to Brinkman-screened…
A 1D mechanical model for nanogranular films, based on a structural interface, is here presented. The analytical dispersion relation for the frequency and lifetimes of the acoustics breathing modes is obtained in terms of the interface…
Diffusion-driven patterns appear on curved surfaces in many settings, initiated by unstable modes of an underlying Laplacian operator. On a flat surface or perfect sphere, the patterns are degenerate, reflecting translational/rotational…
We present a theoretical model and experimental demonstration of thin liquid film deformations due to a dielectric force distribution established by surface electrodes. We model the spatial electric field produced by a pair of parallel…
Nanoscale metallic multilayer (NMM) films are systems offering insight into the role of interfaces in metal plasticity, deformation, and strengthening mechanisms. Magnetron sputtering was used to fabricate the Ta-Cu NMM films with a…
We present a phase-field model for simulating the solid-state dewetting of anisotropic crystalline films on non-planar substrates. This model exploits two order parameters to trace implicitly the crystal free surface and the substrate…
The equilibrium texture of nematic shells is studied as a function of their thickness. For ultrathin shells the ground state has four short 1/2 disclination lines but, as the thickness of the film increases, a three dimensional escaped…
We study the dynamics of active nematic films on a substrate driven by active flows with or without the incompressible constraint.Through simulations and theoretical analysis, we show that arch patterns are stable in the compressible case,…
We investigate the role of architected thin films in the interfacial failure properties of bi-layer composites. Our results show that, while graded structures can be used to prescribe failure at the interface, they do not offer significant…
Consider the three-dimensional flow of a viscous Newtonian fluid upon an abitrarily curved substrate when the fluid film is thin as occurs in many draining, coating and biological flows. We derive a model of the dynamics of the film, the…
The stability of liquid films coating the walls of a parallel-plate channel and sheared by a pressure-driven gas flow along the channel centre is studied. The films are susceptible to a long-wavelength instability, whose dynamic behaviour…
A continuum dynamical model is developed to determine the morphological and compositional instabilities on the free surface of heteroepitaxial alloy films in the absence of growth. We use linear stability analysis to study the early…
The high inertia of classical fluid coating processes severely limits the possibility of controlling the deposited film thickness through the entrainment velocity. We describe and characterize a new experimental device where the inertia is…
We use density functional theory to investigate adsorption of liquid mixtures on solid surfaces modified with end-grafted chains. The chains are modelled as freely joined spheres. The fluid molecules are spherical. All spherical species…