Related papers: Formation and field-driven dynamics of nematic sph…
A micrometer-scale elastic shell immersed in a nematic liquid crystal may be deformed by the host if the cost of deformation is comparable to the cost of elastic deformation of the nematic. Moreover, such inclusions interact and form chains…
Point defects in real crystals at finite temperatures are inevitable. Their dynamics severely influence the mechanical properties of crystals under shear giving rise to nonlinear effects such as ductility. Therefore, it is crucial to…
Capillary microflows of liquid crystal phases are central to material, biological and bio-inspired systems. Despite their fundamental and applied significance, a detailed understanding of the stationary behaviour of nematic liquid crystals…
In this paper we investigate the dynamics of liquid crystal textures in a two-dimensional nematic under applied electric fields, using numerical simulations performed using a publicly available LIquid CRystal Algorithm (LICRA) developed by…
Liquid crystal droplets are of great interest from physics and applications. Rigorous mathematical analysis is challenging as the problem involves harmonic maps (and in general the Oseen-Frank model), free interfaces and topological defects…
Microfluidic droplet screens serve as an innovative platform for high-throughput biotechnology, enabling significant advancements in discovery, product optimization, and analysis. This review sheds light on the emerging trend of interaction…
Crystallization of supersaturated liquids usually starts by heterogeneous nucleation. Mounting evidence shows that even homogeneous nucleation in simple liquids takes place in two steps; first a dense amorphous precursor forms, and the…
Soft nanoparticles hold promise as smart emulsifiers due to their high degree of deformability, permeability and stimuli responsive properties. By means of large-scale simulations we investigate the structural properties of nanogels at…
Colloids are abundant in nature, science and technology, with examples ranging from milk to quantum dots and the "colloidal atom" paradigm. Similarly, liquid crystal ordering is important in contexts ranging from biological membranes to…
The nucleation of crystals in liquids is one of nature's most ubiquitous phenomena, playing an important role in areas such as climate change and the production of drugs. As the early stages of nucleation involve exceedingly small time and…
While evaporating solvent is a widely used technique to assemble nano-sized objects into desired superstructures, there has been limited work on how the assembled structures are affected by the physical aspects of the process. We present…
This review introduces the elasticity theory of two-dimensional crystals and nematic liquid crystals on curved surfaces, the energetics of topological defects (disclinations, dislocations and pleats) in these ordered phases, and the…
We numerically study the dynamics of quasi-two dimensional cholesteric liquid crystal droplets in the presence of a time-dependent electric field, rotating at constant angular velocity. A surfactant sitting at droplet interface is also…
Disclination lines in three-dimensional nematic liquid crystals generically form closed loops whose topology is classified by homotopy theory. While this classification successfully captures global topological features, it does not encode…
One of the most promising applications in nanoscience is the design of new materials to improve water permeability and selectivity of nanoporous membranes. Understanding the molecular architecture behind these fascinating structures and how…
We stabilize nematic droplets with handles against surface-tension-driven instabilities using a yield-stress material as outer fluid and study the complex nematic textures and defect structures that result from the competition between…
Condensation is an important aspect of many flow applications due to the universal presence of humidity in the air at ambient conditions. For direct numerical simulations of such flows, simulating the gas phase as a mixture characterized by…
Spatial confinement in nanoporous media affects the structure, thermodynamics and mobility of molecular soft matter often markedly. This article reviews thermodynamic equilibrium phenomena, such as physisorption, capillary condensation,…
Block copolymers often create droplets when placed on a substrate. Such nanostructured droplets can be arranged into regular microstructured arrays, thereby forming hierarchically organized materials that can be used in microelectronics,…
When a nematic liquid crystal is confined in a porous medium with strong anchoring conditions, topological defects, called disclinations, are stably formed with numerous possible configurations. Since the energy barriers between them are…