Related papers: Liquid Crystal Colloids
Systems of soft-core particles interacting via a two-scale potential are studied. The potential is responsible for peaks in the structure factor of the liquid state at two different but comparable length scales, and a similar bimodal…
Building structures with hierarchical order through the self-assembly of smaller blocks is not only a prerogative of nature, but also a strategy to design artificial materials with tailored functions. We explore in simulation the…
Ion Coulomb crystals are ordered structures formed by laser-cooled ions in traps that are characterized by interparticle distances of several micrometers and energy scales on the order of $\mu$eV. Their crystalline structure emerges from…
Liquid crystals have attracted enormous interest because of the variety of their phases and richness of their application. The interplay of general physical symmetries and specific molecular features generates a myriad of different…
Liquid crystals formed by acute-angle bent-core (ABC) molecules with a 1,7 naphthalene central core show an intriguing phase behavior with the nematic phase accompanied by poorly understood additional phases. In this work, we characterize…
A new class of self-similar ordered structures with non-crystallographic point symmetries is presented. Each of these structures, named superquasicrystals, is given as a section of a higher-dimensional "crystal" with recursive superlattice…
We use molecular dynamics to study the ordering of a nematic liquid crystal around a spherical particle or droplet. Homeotropic boundary conditions and strong anchoring create a hedgehog director configuration on the particle surface and in…
The freezing of colloidal suspensions is encountered in many natural and engineering processes such as the freezing of soils, food engineering, and cryobiology. It can also be used as a bio-inspired, versatile, and environmentally-friendly…
Topological quantum materials hold great promise for future technological applications. Their unique electronic properties, such as protected surface states and exotic quasiparticles, offer opportunities for designing novel electronic…
How thousands of microtubules and molecular motors self-organize into spindles remains poorly understood. By combining static, nanometer-resolution, large-scale electron tomography reconstructions and dynamic, optical-resolution, polarized…
Time crystals, a phase showing spontaneous breaking of time-translation symmetry, has been an intriguing subject for systems far away from equilibrium. Recent experiments found such a phase both in the presence and absence of localization,…
The analysis of Coulomb crystallization is extended from one-component to two-component plasmas. Critical parameters for the existence of Coulomb crystals are derived for both classical and quantum crystals. In the latter case, a critical…
Topological photonics harnesses the physics of topological insulators to control the behavior of light. Photonic modes robust against material imperfections are an example of such control. In this work, we propose a soft-matter platform…
Colloidal particles in liquid crystals tend to induce topological defects and distortions of the molecular alignment within the surrounding anisotropic host medium, which results in elasticity-mediated interactions not accessible to their…
We study how dispersions of colloidal particles in a cholesteric liquid crystal behave under a time-dependent electric field. By controlling the amplitude and shape of the applied field wave, we show that the system can be reproducibly…
We present modeling approaches to explain mechanisms of control of uniformity (narrow distribution) of sizes and shapes in synthesis of nanosize crystals and micron-size colloids. We consider those situations when the nanocrystals are…
We present nonlinear dynamic equations for nematic and smectic $A$ liquid crystals in the presence of an alternating electric field and explain their derivation in detail. The local electric field acting in any liquid-crystalline system is…
In this article, we demonstrate a method for inducing reversible crystal-to-crystal transitions in binary mixtures of soft colloidal particles. Through a controlled decrease of salinity and increasingly dominating electrostatic…
Soft condensed matter physics is the study of materials, such as fluids, liquid crystals, polymers, colloids, and emulsions, that are ``soft" to the touch. This article will review some properties, such as the dominance of entropy, that are…
Colloidal dispersions are commonly encountered in everyday life and represent an important class of complex fluid. Of particular significance for many commercial products and industrial processes is the ability to control and manipulate the…