Related papers: Switching dynamics in cholesteric liquid crystal e…
On a sufficiently-soft substrate, a resting fluid droplet will cause significant deformation of the substrate. This deformation is driven by a combination of capillary forces at the contact line and the fluid pressure at the solid surface.…
The complicated dynamics of the contact line of a moving droplet on a solid substrate often hamper the efficient modeling of microfluidic systems. In particular, the selection of the effective boundary conditions, specifying the contact…
From hydrogels and plastics to liquid crystals, soft solids cover a wide array of synthetic and biological materials that play key enabling roles in advanced technologies such as 3D printing, soft robotics, wearable electronics,…
Anisotropic fluids appear in a diverse array of systems, from liquid-crystal displays to bacterial swarms, and are characterized by orientational order. Large colloidal particles immersed in such environments disturb the medium's…
We study spreading dynamics of nematic liquid crystal droplets within the framework of the long-wave approximation. A fourth order nonlinear parabolic partial differential equation governing the free surface evolution is derived. The…
Using computer simulations we investigate the microscopic structure of the singular director field within a nematic droplet. As a theoretical model for nematic liquid crystals we take hard spherocylinders. To induce an overall topological…
Liquid crystals formed of bent-core molecules are exotic materials that exhibit the twist-bend nematic phase. This arises when an energetic preference for nonzero local bend distortion is accommodated via twist in the texture, resulting in…
We investigate the deformation of elastic microcapsules adsorbed at liquid-liquid interfaces. An initially spherical elastic capsule at a liquid-liquid interface undergoes circumferential stretching due to the liquid-liquid surface tension…
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…
Suspended droplets of cholesteric (chiral nematic) liquid crystals spontaneously rotate in the presence of a heat flux due to a temperature gradient, a phenomenon known as Lehmann effect. So far, it is not clear whether this effect is due…
A droplet can deform a soft substrate due to capillary forces when they are in contact. We study the static deformation of a soft solid layer coated on a rigid cylindrical fiber when an axisymmetric barrel-shaped droplet is embracing it. We…
Controlling the shape and position of moving and pinned droplets on a solid surface is an important feature often found in microfluidic applications. However, automating them, e.g., for high-throughput applications, does rarely involve…
The jumping-droplet condensation, namely the out-of-plane jumping of condensed droplets upon coalescence, has been a promising technical innovation in the fields of energy harvesting, droplet manipulation, thermal management, etc., yet is…
The multidimensional energy surface of a cholesteric liquid crystal in a planar cell is investigated as a function of spherical coordinates determining the director orientation. Minima on the energy surface correspond to the stable states…
Liquid crystal elastomers represent a novel class of programmable shape-transforming materials whose shape change trajectory is encoded in the material's nematic director field. Using three-dimensional nonlinear finite element…
We study the rolling and sliding motion of droplets on a corrugated substrate by Molecular Dynamics simulations. Droplets are driven by an external body force (gravity) and we investigate the velocity profile and dissipation mechanisms in…
In complex crystals close to melting or at finite temperatures, different types of defects are ubiquitous and their role becomes relevant in the mechanical response of these solids. Conventional elasticity theory fails to provide a…
An evaporating droplet is a dynamic system in which flow is spontaneously generated to minimize the surface energy, dragging particles to the borders and ultimately resulting in the so-called "coffee-stain effect". The situation becomes…
The dielectric dispersion in the uniaxial nematic liquid crystals affects the switching dynamics of the director, as the dielectric torque is determined by not only the present values of the electric field and director but also by their…
Dynamics of a liquid drop falling through a quiescent medium of another liquid is investigated in external uniform electric field. The electrohydrodynamics of a drop is governed by inherent deformability of the drop (defined by capillary…