Related papers: Liquid crystal elastomer coatings with programmed …
A hydrostatically stressed soft elastic film circumvents the imposed constraint by undergoing a morphological instability, the wavelength of which is dictated by the minimization of the surface and the elastic strain energies of the film.…
When thermal energies are weak, two dimensional lamellar structures confined on a curved substrate display complex patterns arising from the competition between layer bending and compression in the presence of geometric constraints. We…
When a rigid object approaches a soft material in a viscous fluid, hydrodynamic stresses arise in the lubricated contact region and deform the soft material. The elastic deformation modifies in turn the flow, hence generating a…
This contribution reports for the first time on fabrication and investigation of wetting properties of structured surfaces containing lamellae with an exceptionally high aspect ratio - height/width ratio demonstrated of 57:1. The lamellar…
Liquid crystal elastomers realize a fascinating new form of soft matter that is a composite of a conventional crosslinked polymer gel (rubber) and a liquid crystal. These {\em solid} liquid crystal amalgams, quite similarly to their…
Chromonic liquid crystals (CLCs) are lyotropic materials which are attracting growing interest for their adaptability to living systems. A considerable body of works has been devoted to exploring their properties and applications. In this…
There is a growing need for soft robotic platforms that perform gentle, precise handling of a wide variety of objects. Existing surface-based manipulation systems, however, lack the compliance and tactile feedback needed for delicate…
Elastic models of the glass transition relate the relaxation dynamics and the elastic properties of structural glasses. They are based on the assumption that the relaxation dynamics occurs through activated events in the energy landscape…
We consider the shape of crystals which are soft in the sense that their elastic modulus $\mu$ is small compared to their surface tension $\gamma$, more precisely $ \mu a < \gamma$ where $a$ is the lattice spacing. We show that their…
We derive the effective energy density of thin membranes of liquid crystal elastomers as the Gamma-limit of a widely used bulk model. These membranes can display fine-scale features both due to wrinkling that one expects in thin elastic…
The diffraction of fast atoms at crystal surfaces is ideal for a detailed investigation of the surface electronic density. However, instead of sharp diffraction spots, most experiments show elongated streaks characteristic of inelastic…
A theoretical analysis of homeotropic alignment induced by nanoparticles (NPs) in a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) sample cell is presented. It is found that such alignment on the surface of a NP causes a change in the orientation of the…
The emissivity of common materials remains constant with temperature variations, and cannot drastically change. However, it is possible to design its entire behaviour as a function of temperature, and to significantly modify the thermal…
Achieving control and tunability of lyotropic materials has been a long-standing goal of liquid crystal research. Here we show that the elasticity of a liquid crystal system consisting of a dense suspension of semiflexible biopolymers can…
We consider a class of liquid crystal free-boundary problems for which both the equilibrium shape and internal configuration of a system must simultaneously be determined, for example in films with air- or fluid-liquid crystal interfaces…
What characterises a solid is its way to respond to external stresses. Ordered solids, such crystals, display an elastic regime followed by a plastic one, both well understood microscopically in terms of lattice distortion and dislocations.…
The macroscopic shape of liquid crystalline elastomers strongly depends on the order parameter of the mesogenic groups. This order can be manipulated if photoisomerisable groups, e.g. containing N=N bonds, are introduced into the material.…
We study the role of elasticity-induced facilitation on the dynamics of glass-forming liquids by a coarse-grained two-dimensional model in which local relaxation events, taking place by thermal activation, can trigger new relaxations by…
We study the interaction of small hydrophobic particles on the surface of an ultra-soft elastic gel, in which a small amount of elasticity of the medium balances the weights of the particles. The excess energy of the surface of the deformed…
Nonlinear elastic metamaterials are known to support a variety of dynamic phenomena that enhance our capacity to manipulate elastic waves. Since these properties stem from complex, subwavelength geometry, full-scale dynamic simulations are…