Related papers: Key-Lock Colloids in a Nematic Liquid Crystal
Monte Carlo simulations are used to study the conformational behavior of a semiflexible polymer confined to cylindrical and conical channels. The channels are sufficiently narrow that the conditions for the Odijk regime are marginally…
Since the early observation of nematic phases of disc-like clay colloids by Langmuir in 1938, the phase behaviour of such systems has resisted theoretical understanding. The main reason is that there is no satisfactory generalization for…
Employing simplified models in computer simulation is on the one hand often enforced by computer time limitations but on the other hand it offers insights into the molecular properties determining a given physical phenomenon. We employ this…
We show that the elastic charge of colloids in a nematic liquid crystal can be generated by the vector of external torque. The torque components play the role of two component charge (dyad) and give rise to the Coulomb-like potential, while…
Colloidal particles are not simple rigid particles, in general an isolated particle is a system with many degrees of freedom in its own right, e.g., the counterions around a charged colloidal particle.The behaviour of model colloidal…
Optical polarimetry measurements of the orientational order of a discotic liquid crystal based on a pyrene derivative and confined in parallel-aligned nanochannels of monolithic mesoporous alumina, silica, and silicon as a function of…
A hybrid system composed of an isotropic nanoparticle and a semiconductor heterostructure with a quantum well has been considered. The nanoparticle is supposed to be polarizable in an external electric field. A theoretical model of the…
Anisotropic fluids, such as nematic liquid crystals, can form non-spherical equilibrium shapes known as tactoids. Predicting the shape of these structures as a function of material parameters is challenging and paradigmatic of a broader…
We show by means of continuum theory and simulations that geometric percolation in uniaxial nematics of hard slender particles is fundamentally different from that in isotropic dispersions. In the nematic, percolation depends only very…
Strong anchoring boundary conditions are conventionally modelled by imposing Dirichlet conditions on the order parameter in Landau-de Gennes theory, neglecting the finite surface energy of realistic anchoring. This work revisits the strong…
The classical Oseen-Frank theory of liquid crystal elasticity is based on the experimentally verified fact that there are three independent modes of distortion, each with its associated elastic constant. On the other hand, the arguably more…
We report filling-fraction dependent dielectric spectroscopy measurements on the relaxation dynamics of the rod-like nematogen 7CB condensed in 13 nm silica nanochannels. In the film-condensed regime, a slow interface relaxation dominates…
Using Landau-de Gennes effective theory for nematic liquid crystals we analyse the structure of rectilinear n=1/2 smooth disclination line in the case of equal elastic constants. We find that at certain temperature there is an exact…
We present an analytic theory for the optical properties of ellipsoidal plasmonic particles covered by anisotropic molecular layers. The theory is applied to the case of a prolate spheroid covered by chromophores oriented parallel and…
The progress of realizing colloidal structures mimicking natural forms of organization in condensed matter is inherently limited by the availability of suitable colloidal building blocks. To enable new forms of crystalline and…
The effective interaction between charged colloidal particles confined between two planar like-charged walls is investigated using computer simulations of the primitive model describing asymmetric electrolytes. In detail, we calculate the…
We study thin films of A/B diblock copolymer in a lamellar phase confined between two parallel plates (electrodes) that impose a constant voltage across the film. The weak-segregation limit is explored via a Ginzburg-Landau-like free-energy…
We propose a continuum model to describe the molecular alignment in thin nematic shells. By contrast with previous accounts, the two-dimensional free energy, aimed at describing the physics of thin films of nematics deposited on curved…
Despite their considerable practical and biological applications, the link between molecular properties, assembly conditions and self-organized structure in confined polymer solutions remains elusive. Here, we explore the lyotropic nematic…
Recently, it was observed that water droplets suspended in a nematic liquid crystal form linear chains (Poulin et al., Science 275, 1770 (1997)). The chaining occurs, e.g., in a large nematic drop with homeotropic boundary conditions at all…