Related papers: Hydrodynamic instabilities in active cholesteric l…
Stability is an important and fruitful avenue of research for liquid crystal elastomers. At constant temperature, upon stretching, the homogeneous state of a nematic body becomes unstable, and alternating shear stripes develop at very low…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are soft phase-changing solids that exhibit large reversible contractions upon heating, Goldstone-like soft modes and resultant microstructural instabilities. We heat a planar LCE slab to isotropic, clamp…
We investigate theoretically the wetting properties of cholesteric liquid crystals at a planar substrate. If the properties of substrate and of the interface are such that the cholesteric layers are not distorted the wetting properties are…
This study investigates the influence of chirality, viscous effects, and confinement geometry on the flow dynamics and defect structures of cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) using numerical simulations. As chiral strength increases,…
The interface of a cholesteric liquid crystal with an isotropic fluid can display a range of unusual properties, such as a layer of topological defects close to an undulated interface. These properties have been know for a long time and…
In a ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal, the electrostatic interaction can induce a spontaneous cholesteric helix, even if the material is not chiral. If the liquid-crystal cell is infinitely thick, then the predicted pitch depends…
Repeated loading of a solid leads to microstructural damage that ultimately results in catastrophic material failure. While posing a major threat to the stability of virtually all materials, the microscopic origins of fatigue, especially…
We study theoretically the hydrodynamics of a fluid drop containing oriented filaments endowed with active contractile or extensile stresses and placed on a solid surface. The active stresses alter qualitatively the wetting properties of…
The linear stability of stratified two-phase flows in rectangular ducts is studied numerically. The linear stability analysis takes into account all possible infinitesimal three-dimensional disturbances and is carried out by solution of the…
We use lattice Boltzmann simulations to solve the Beris-Edwards equations of motion for a cholesteric liquid crystal subjected to Poiseuille flow along the direction of the helical axis (permeative flow). The results allow us to clarify and…
The distinction between absolute and convective instabilities is well known in the context of hydrodynamics and plasma physics. In this Letter, we examine an epitaxial crystal growth model from this point of view and show that a…
Using a minimal hydrodynamic model, we theoretically and computationally study active gels in straight and annular two-dimensional channels subject to an externally imposed shear. The gels are isotropic in the absence of externally- or…
Electro-hydrodynamic phenomena in liquid crystals constitute an old but still very active research area. The reason is that these phenomena play the key role in various applications of liquid crystals and due to the general interest of…
We study the necking of a filament of complex fluid or soft solid subject to uniaxial tensile stretching, under conditions of constant imposed stress and force, by means of linear stability analysis and nonlinear simulations. We demonstrate…
The ground state of twist-bend nematic liquid crystals is a heliconical molecular arrangement in which the nematic director precesses uniformly about an axis, making a fixed angle with it. Both precession senses are allowed in the ground…
The complex physics of self-assembly in colloidal crystals on deformable interfaces and surfaces poses interesting possibilities for the designability and synthesis of next-generation metamaterials. The goal of this article is to…
We consider a one-dimensional variational problem arising in connection with a model for cholesteric liquid crystals. The principal feature of our study is the assumption that the twist deformation of the nematic director incurs much higher…
We investigate experimentally and numerically the defect configurations emerging when a cholesteric liquid crystal is confined to a spherical shell. We uncover a rich scenario of defect configurations, some of them non-existent in nematic…
Topological defects play a prominent role in the physics of two-dimensional materials. When driven out of equilibrium in active nematics, disclinations can acquire spontaneous self-propulsion and drive self-sustained flows upon…
Active-elastic instabilities are common phenomena in the natural world which have the aspect of sudden mechanical morphings. Frequently, the driving force of the instability mechanisms has a chemo-mechanical nature which makes these kind of…