Related papers: Magnetically responsive gourd-shaped colloidal par…
We study elastic interactions between colloidal particles and deformation landscapes of undulations in a cholesteric liquid crystal under an electric field applied normal to cholesteric layers. The onset of undulation instability is…
Using laser tweezers and fluorescence confocal polarizing microscopy, we study colloidal interactions of solid microspheres in the nematic bulk caused by elastic distortions around the particles with strong tangential surface anchoring. The…
Cholesteric liquid crystals can exhibit spatial patterns in molecular alignment at interfaces that can be exploited for particle assembly. These patterns emerge from the competition between bulk and surface energies, tunable with the system…
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…
We study by simulation the physics of two colloidal particles in a cholesteric liquid crystal with tangential order parameter alignment at the particle surface. The effective force between the pair is attractive at short range and favors…
Understanding the out-of equilibrium behaviour of point defects in crystals, yields insights into the nature and fragility of the ordered state, as well as being of great practical importance. In some rare cases defects are spontaneously…
Colloidal particles dispersed in liquid crystals can form new materials with tunable elastic and electro-optic properties. In a periodic `blue phase' host, particles should template into colloidal crystals with potential uses in photonics,…
Colloidal particles disturb the alignment of rod-like molecules of liquid crystals, giving rise to long-range interactions that minimize the free energy of distorted regions. Particle shape and topology are known to guide this self-assembly…
Control of physical behaviors of nematic colloids and colloidal crystals has been demonstrated by tuning particle shape, topology, chirality and surface charging. However, the capability of altering physical behaviors of such soft matter…
Manipulating the way in which colloidal particles self-organise is a central challenge in the design of functional soft materials. Meeting this challenge requires the use of building blocks that interact with one another in a highly…
Active elastomeric liquid crystal particles with initial cylindrical shapes are obtained by means of soft lithography and polymerization in a strong magnetic field. Gold nanocrystals infiltrated into these particles mediate energy transfer…
Spherical microparticles dispersed in nematic liquid crystals have been extensively investigated in the past years. Here, we report experimental studies on the elastic deformation, colloidal interaction and self-assembly of hematite…
We study mutual alignment and interactions between colloidal particles of dissimilar shapes and dimensions when dispersed in a nematic host fluid. Convex pentagonal and concave starfruit-shaped nanoprisms and microspheres induce dipolar or…
We study how dispersions of colloidal particles in a cholesteric liquid crystal behave under a time-dependent electric field. By controlling the amplitude and shape of the applied field wave, we show that the system can be reproducibly…
We propose a hybrid lattice Boltzmann algorithm to simulate the hydrodynamics of colloidal particles inside a liquid crystalline host. To validate our algorithm, we study the static and the microrheology of a colloid in a nematic, with…
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…
The self-assembly of anisotropic patchy particles with triangular shape was studied by experiments and computer simulations. The colloidal particles were synthesized in a two-step seeded emulsion polymerization process, and consist of a…
Self-assembly of colloidal particles due to elastic interactions in nematic liquid crystals promises tunable composite materials and can be guided by exploiting surface functionalization, geometric shape and topology, though these means of…
Self-assembly of nanoparticles can enable composites with pre-designed properties but remains challenged by reproducing structural diversity of atomic and molecular crystals. We combine anisotropic elastic and weakly screened electrostatic…
Monopole-like electrostatic interactions are ubiquitous in biology and condensed matter, but they are often screened by counter-ions and cannot be switched from attractive to repulsive. In colloidal science, where the prime goal is to…