Related papers: Nematic liquid crystal phase in a system of intera…
We consider a two-dimensional lattice model for liquid crystals consisting of long rods interacting via purely hard core interactions, with two allowed orientations defined by the underlying lattice. We rigorously prove the existence of a…
We revisit a two-dimensional model of liquid crystals introduced by Heilmann and Lieb (1979), which consists of a system of dimers on the square lattice at chemical potential $\lambda$, interacting via a hard-core repulsion and an…
In this talk I consider a two-dimensional lattice model for liquid crystals consisting of long rods interacting via purely hard core interactions, with two allowed orientations defined by the underlying lattice. I report a rigorous proof of…
A monomer-dimer model with a short-range attractive interaction favoring colinear dimers is considered on the lattice $\mathbb{Z}^2$. Although our choice of the chemical potentials results in more horizontal than vertical dimers, the…
An amalgamate of nematic liquid crystals and active matter, referred to as living liquid crystals, is a promising self-healing material with futuristic applications for targeted delivery of information and micro-cargo. We provide a…
Mono-layers of stearic and behenic acids and mixtures of them in different proportions, deposited with the Langmuir-Blodgett technique, were used to study the alignment and the alignment dynamics in nematic liquid crystal cells. A…
Mono-layers of stearic and behenic acids deposited with the Langmuir-Blodgett technique, were used as aligning films in nematic liquid crystal cells. During the filling process the liquid crystal adopts a deformed quasi-planar alignment…
The liquid-to-ordered phase transition in a bilayer system of fermions is studied within the context of a recently proposed density-functional theory [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 92}, 023614 (2015)]. In each two-dimensional layer, the fermions…
We introduce a lattice model of dimers with directional interactions as a paradigm of molecular fluids or strongly correlated Cooper pairs in electronic systems. The model supports an intermediate phase that is common to both systems. There…
When liquid-crystal elastomers are prepared without any alignment, disordered polydomain structures emerge as the materials are cooled into the nematic phase. These polydomain structures have been attributed to quenched disorder in the…
We consider a system of anisotropic plates in the three-dimensional continuum, interacting via purely hard core interactions. We assume that the particles have a finite number of allowed orientations. In a suitable range of densities, we…
We present a detailed study of a model of close-packed dimers on the square lattice with an interaction between nearest-neighbor dimers. The interaction favors parallel alignment of dimers, resulting in a low-temperature crystalline phase.…
We consider the effects of polydispersity on isotropic-nematic phase equilibria in thermotropic liquid crystals, using a Maier-Saupe theory with factorized interactions. A sufficient spread (approx. 50%) in the interaction strengths of the…
When nematic liquid crystals are embedded in random polymer networks, the disordered environment disrupts the long-range order, producing a glassy state. If an electric field is applied, it induces large and fairly temperature-independent…
A nematic phase, previously seen in the d=3 classical Heisenberg spin-glass system, occurs in the n-component cubic-spin spin-glass system, between the low-temperature spin-glass phase and the high temperature disordered phase, for number…
We present a model of classical hard-core dimers on the square lattice that contains an Ising nematic phase in its phase diagram. We consider a model with an attractive interaction for parallel dimers on a given plaquette of the square…
We present a statistical mechanics approximation scheme for the explicit treatment of spacer-mediated configurational correlations among the mesogenic units that form a dimer molecule. The approximation is applied to the description of the…
In search for novel nematic materials, a laterally linked H-shaped liquid crystal dimer have been synthesized and characterized. The distinct feature of the material is a very broad temperature range (about 50 oC) of the nematic phase,…
A mean-field monomer-dimer model which includes an attractive interaction among both monomers and dimers is introduced and its exact solution rigorously derived. The Heilmann-Lieb method for the pure hard-core interacting case is used to…
A theoretical analysis is presented of a nematic liquid crystal confined between substrates pat- terned with squares that promote vertical and planar alignment. Two approaches are used to eluci- date the behavior across a wide range of…