Related papers: Liquid Crystal Colloids
Liquid crystal is a typical kind of soft matter that is intermediate between crystalline solids and isotropic fluids. The study of liquid crystals has made tremendous progress over the last four decades, which is of great importance on both…
The design of complex materials and the formation of specific patterns often arise from the properties of the individual building blocks. In this respect, colloidal systems offer a unique opportunity because nowadays they can be synthesized…
Liquid crystals are synthetic and biological viscoelastic anisotropic soft matter materials that combine liquid fluidity with crystal anisotropy and find use in optical devices, sensor/actuators, lubrication, super-fibers. Frequently…
The last decade has witnessed a rapid growth in understanding of the pivotal roles of mechanical stresses and physical forces in cell biology. As a result an integrated view of cell biology is evolving, where genetic and molecular features…
An increasing variety of crystal structures has been observed in soft condensed matter over the past two decades, surpassing most expectations for the diversity of arrangements accessible through classical driving forces. Here, we survey…
Colloids self-assemble into various organized superstructures determined by particle interactions. There is a tremendous progress in both the scientific understanding and applications of self-assemblies of single-type identical particles.…
Abundant in nature, colloids also find increasingly important applications in science and technology, ranging from direct probing of kinetics in crystals and glasses to fabrication of third-generation quantum-dot solar cells. Because…
The geometric shape, symmetry, and topology of colloidal particles often allow for controlling colloidal phase behavior and physical properties of these soft matter systems. In liquid crystalline dispersions, colloidal particles with low…
Micrometre sized colloidal particles can be viewed as large atoms with tailorable size, shape and interactions. These building blocks can assemble into extremely rich structures and phases, in which the thermal motions of particles can be…
Liquid crystals are the prototype of the so-called soft condensed matter. In simple terms they are "structured liquids" that historically have received a lot of interest because they help to generate new concepts and knowledge in Physics,…
Colloidal particles dispersed in liquid crystals can form new materials with tunable elastic and electro-optic properties. In a periodic `blue phase' host, particles should template into colloidal crystals with potential uses in photonics,…
Motivated by recent experiments on colloidal systems with competing attractive and repulsive interactions, we simulate a two-dimensional system of colloids with competing interactions that can undergo fragmentation. In the absence of any…
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…
Disordered systems like liquids, gels, glasses, or granular materials are not only ubiquitous in daily life and in industrial applications but they are also crucial for the mechanical stability of cells or the transport of chemical and…
In the last two years we have witnessed the exciting experimental discovery of soft matter with nontrivial quasiperiodic long-range order - a new form of matter termed a soft quasicrystal. Two groups have independently discovered such order…
We demonstrate a variety of ordered patterns, including hexagonal structures and chains, formed by colloidal particles (droplets) at the free surface of a nematic liquid crystal (LC). The surface placement introduces a new type of particle…
A promising approach in designing composite materials with unusual physical behavior combines solid nanostructures and orientationally ordered soft matter at the mesoscale. Such composites not only inherit properties of their constituents…
Widely known for their uses in displays and electro-optics, liquid crystals are more than just technological marvels. They vividly reveal the topology and structure of various solitonic and singular field configurations, often markedly…
The interplay between order and geometry in soft condensed matter systems is an active field with many striking results and even more open problems. Ordered structures on curved surfaces appear in multi-electron helium bubbles, viral and…
Liquid crystals are assemblies of rod-like molecules which self-organize to form mesophases, in-between ordinary liquids and anisotropic crystals. At each point, the molecules collectively orient themselves along a privileged direction,…