Related papers: Bistable curvature potential at hyperbolic points …
A soft ellipsoid contact potential model for a pair of biaxial ellipsoidal molecules is proposed which considers the configuration dependent energy anisotropy explicitly along with their geometrical aspects. We performed Molecular Dynamics…
A folded disk is bistable, as it can be popped through to an inverted state with elastic energy localized in a small, highly-deformed region on the fold. Cutting out this singularity relaxes the surrounding material and leads to a loss of…
We present a phenomenological theory of the interplay between nematic order and superconductivity in the vicinity of a vortex induced by an applied magnetic field. Nematic order can be strongly enhanced in the vortex core. As a result, the…
In this work, a theoretical study of phase equilibrium in mixtures of a calamitic nematic liquid crystal and hard spherical nanoparticles is presented. A mean-field thermodynamic model is used, where the interactions are considered to be…
The basic physics of nucleation in solid \hl{single-crystal} nanoparticles is revealed by a phase-field theory that includes surface energy, chemical reactions and coherency strain. In contrast to binary fluids, which form arbitrary contact…
The Hartree-Fock states of the many-electron atomic system can be unstable with respect to a static or dynamic shift of the electron shells. An appropriate non-rigid shell model for atomic clusters is developed. It permits to formulate a…
There is a recent interest in studying odd elasticity in soft solids. Current focus has been on simple solids. However, many soft solids are structured and can exhibit nematic elasticity or viscoelasticity. Here we generalize the concept of…
Rod-shaped colloids with attractive tips can form linear aggregates that may subsequently undergo hierarchical self-assembly into nematic fluids. Inspired by recent modelling efforts on chromonic liquid crystals, composed of discotic…
Using scaled-particle theory for binary mixtures of two-dimensional hard particles with rotational freedom, we analyse the stability of nematic phases and the demixing phase behaviour of a variety of mixtures, focussing on cases where at…
Non-equilibrium dynamics of topological defects can be used as a fundamental propulsion mechanism in microscopic active matter. Here, we demonstrate swimming of topological defect-propelled colloidal particles in (passive) nematic fluids…
Using particle-resolved molecular-dynamics simulations, we compute the phase diagram for soft repulsive spherocylinders confined on the surface of a sphere. While crystal (K), smectic (Sm), and isotropic (I) phases exhibit a stability…
Analytical relationships for the surface and curvature energies of oblate and prolate semi-spheroidal atomic clusters have been obtained. By modifying the cluster shape from a spheroid to a semi-spheroid the most stable shape was changed…
Surface energy is a fundamental property of materials and is particularly important in describing nanomaterials where atoms or molecules at the surface constitute a large fraction of the material. Traditionally, surface energy is considered…
A nematic liquid-crystal gel is a macroscopically homogeneous elastic medium with the rotational symmetry of a nematic liquid crystal. In this paper, we develop a general approach to the study of these gels that incorporates all underlying…
Two nematic shells brought in contact coalesce in order to reduce their interfacial tension. This process proceeds through the creation of a liquid neck-like bridge through which the encapsulated fluid flows. Following this topological…
Freezing of charged colloids on square or triangular two-dimensional periodic substrates has been recently shown to realize a rich variety of orientational orders. We propose a theoretical framework to analyze the corresponding structures.…
We study elasticity-driven morphological transitions of soft spherical core shell structures in which the core can be treated as an isotropic elastic continuum and the surface or shell as a tensionless liquid layer, whose elastic response…
Motivated by recently discovered unusual properties of bulk nematic elastomers, we study a phase diagram of liquid-crystalline polymerized phantom membranes, focusing on in-plane nematic order. We predict that such membranes should…
We observe novel positional control of a colloidal particle in microchannel flow of a nematic liquid crystal. Lattice Boltzmann simulations show multiple equilibrium particle positions, the existence and position of which are tunable using…
A spontaneous buckling transition in thin layers of monodomain nematic liquid crystalline gel was observed by polarized light microscopy. The coupling between the orientational ordering of liquid crystalline solvent and the translational…