Related papers: Displays and antiferroelectric liquid crystals
We present a theory of the elasticity and fluctuations of the Smectic A and C phases in uniaxial, anisotropic disordered environments, e.g., stretched aerogel. We find that, bizarrely, the low-temperature, lower-symmetry Smectic $C$ phase…
Polar chiral structures have recently attracted much interest within the scientific community, as they pave the way towards innovative device concepts similar to the developments achieved in nanomagnetism. Despite the growing interest, many…
Various possibilities of polar self-organisation in low molar mass nematic, smectic and columnar liquid crystals are discussed with particular focus on the underlying molecular symmetries and interactions. Distinction is made between vector…
Linear defects such as dislocations and disclinations in ordered materials attract foreign particles since they replace strong elastic distortions at the defect cores. In this work, we explore the behavior of isotropic droplets nucleating…
Self-assembly of colloidal particles due to elastic interactions in nematic liquid crystals promises tunable composite materials and can be guided by exploiting surface functionalization, geometric shape and topology, though these means of…
Polarized neutron diffraction experiments have been performed on multiferroic materials $R$Mn$_{2}$O$_{5}$ ($R=$Ho, Er) under electric fields in the ferroelectric commensurate (CM) and the low-temperature incommensurate (LT-ICM) phases,…
Electronic-liquid-crystal phases, in which part of the spatial symmetries are broken spontaneously, are considered to play a vital role in interpreting the structure-property relation in strongly-correlated materials. Although…
A binary mixture of particles interacting with spherically-symmetric potentials leading to microsegregation is studied by theory and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We consider spherical particles with equal diameters and volume…
Phenomenological model of chiral polar smectics is introduced with interactions up to the fourth neighboring layers. The minimization of the free energy gives three stable structures: the ferroelectric Sm C$^*$ phase, the antiferroelectric…
We consider a mathematical model that describes the flow of a Nematic Liquid Crystal (NLC) film placed on a flat substrate, across which a spatially-varying electric potential is applied. Due to their polar nature, NLC molecules interact…
Comprehensive x-ray scattering studies have characterized the smectic ordering of octylcyanobiphenyl (8CB) confined in the hydrogen-bonded silica gels formed by aerosil dispersions. For all densities of aerosil and all measurement…
Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy ferromagnetic/ superconducting (FM/SC) bilayers with a labyrinth domain structure are used to study nucleation of superconductivity on a fractal network, tunable through magnetic history. As clusters of…
Electrical control of magnetization or magnetic control of polarization offers an extra degree of freedom in materials possessing both electric and magnetic dipole moments viz., magnetoelectric multiferroics. Microstructure with…
We calculate the dynamical fluctuation spectrum of electronic spins in a semiconductor under a steady-state illumination by light containing polarization squeezing correlations. Taking into account quasi-particle lifetime and spin…
The phase behavior of the system of parallel rigid triblock copolymers is examined using the second-virial density functional theory. The triblock particle consists of two identical infinitely thin hard rods of finite lengths on the…
The low-energy sector of QCD with $N_f = 2\!+\!1$ dynamical quark flavors at non-vanishing chemical potential and temperature is studied with a non-perturbative functional renormalization group method. The analysis is performed in different…
We study the spatio-temporal dynamics of the oscillatory photo-electrodissolution of n-type Si in a fluoride-containing electrolyte under anodic potentials using in-situ ellipsometric imaging. When lowering the illumination intensity…
Inspired by recent developments in self-assembled chiral nanostructures, we have explored the possibility of using spherical particles packed in cylinders as building blocks for chiral photonic crystals. In particular, we focused on an…
Investigations of the phase diagram of biaxial liquid crystal systems through analyses of general Hamiltonian models within the simplifications of mean-field theory (MFT), as well as by computer simulations based on microscopic models, are…
Disclinations, first observed in mesomorphic phases, are relevant to a number of ill-ordered condensed matter media, with continuous symmetries or frustrated order. They also appear in polycrystals at the edges of grain boundaries. They are…