Related papers: Mesostructured composite materials with electrical…
We report the discovery of a mixed orientational structure in the quasi-one-dimensional fluid of hard non-spherical bodies with the exact calculation of the thermodynamic and structural quantities using the transfer operator method. The…
The ordering of nanoparticles into predetermined configurations is of importance to the design of advanced technologies. In this work, we moderate the surface anchoring against the bulk elasticity of liquid crystals to dynamically shape…
Nanoporous media exhibit structures significantly smaller than the wavelengths of visible light and can thus act as photonic metamaterials. Their optical functionality is not determined by the properties of the base materials, but rather by…
We report a hybrid mesophase consisting of magnetic nanorods confined between the non-ionic surfactant bilayers of a lamellar phase. The magnetic field-induced ordering of the nanorods was measured experimentally and modeled by a…
The ability to artificially grow in a controllable manner at nanoscale, from modern deposition techniques, complex structural configurations made with metallic, polar and semiconductors materials raises today the issue of the "best"…
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…
Auxiliary nanostructures introduce additional flexibility into optomechanical manipulation schemes. Metamaterials and metasurfaces capable to control electromagnetic interactions at the near-field regions are especially beneficial for…
The recently discovered ferroelectric nematic liquids incorporate to the functional combination of fluidity, processability and anisotropic optical properties of nematic liquids, an astonishing range of physical properties derived from the…
Topological spin and polar textures have fascinated people in different areas of physics and technologies. However, the observations are limited in magnetic and solid-state ferroelectric systems. Ferroelectric nematic is the first…
We describe a soft matter system of self-organized oblate micelles and plasmonic gold nanorods that exhibit a negative orientational order parameter. Because of anisotropic surface anchoring interactions, colloidal gold nanorods tend to…
Tunable metasurfaces enable active and on-demand control over optical wavefronts through reconfigurable scattering of resonant nanostructures. Here, we present novel insights inspired by mechanical metamaterials to achieve giant tunability…
A paradigm proposed recently by Boal et al. (A.K. Boal et al., Nature 404, 746-748, 2000) deals with the possibility to use inorganic nanoparticles as building blocks for the design and fabrication of colloidal and supracolloidal…
Magnetic remote actuation of soft materials is attractive for applications such as transforming materials and medical robots. However, due to manufacturing limitations, microscale magnetoactive devices are scarce -- light-based additive…
Fe-based metallic glasses are promising functional materials for advanced magnetism and sensor fields. Tailoring magnetic performance in amorphous materials requires a thorough knowledge of the correlation between structural disorder and…
The assembly of nanometer-sized building blocks into complex morphologies is not only of fundamental interest but also plays a key role in material science and nanotechnology. We show that the shape of self-assembled superstructures formed…
Nanostructured dielectric metasurfaces offer unprecedented opportunities to manipulate light by imprinting an arbitrary phase-gradient on an impinging wavefront. This has resulted in the realization of a range of flat analogs to classical…
The elaboration of multimodal nanoparticles stimulates tremendous interest owing to their numerous potentialities in many applicative fields like optoelectronics, photonics and especially bioimaging. The concomitant association of various…
The ability to manipulate polar entities with multiple external fields opens exciting possibilities for emerging functionalities and novel applications in spin systems, photonics, metamaterials, and soft matter. Liquid crystals (LCs),…
Metasurfaces are generally designed by placing scatterers in periodic or pseudo-periodic grids. We propose and discuss design rules for functional metasurfaces with randomly placed anisotropic elements. By analyzing the focusing performance…
The optical properties of some nanomaterials can be controlled by an external magnetic field, providing active functionalities for a wide range of applications, from single-molecule sensing to nanoscale nonreciprocal optical isolation.…