Related papers: Instability of toroidal nematics
Motivated by recent experiments on the rod-like virus bacteriophage fd, confined to circular and annular domains, we present a theoretical study of structural transitions in these geometries. Using the continuum theory of nematic liquid…
We consider nematic liquid crystals in a bounded, convex polyhedron described by a director field n(r) subject to tangent boundary conditions. We derive lower bounds for the one-constant elastic energy in terms of topological invariants.…
From the mitotic spindle up to tissues and biofilms, many biological systems behave as active droplets, which often break symmetry and change shape spontaneously. Here, I show that active nematic droplets can experience a fingering…
The director configuration of disclination lines in nematic liquid crystals in the presence of an external magnetic field is evaluated. Our method is a combination of a polynomial expansion for the director and of further analytical…
We derive a mathematical model of a nematic electrolyte based on a variational formulation of nematodynamics. Extending our previous work, we consider a general setup which incorporates dielectric anisotropy of the liquid-crystalline matrix…
We investigate the turbulent dynamics of a two-dimensional active nematic liquid crystal con- strained on a curved surface. Using a combination of hydrodynamic and particle-based simulations, we demonstrate that the fundamental structural…
We model within the framework of finite elasticity two inherent instabilities observed in liquid crystal elastomers under uniaxial tension. First is necking which occurs when a material sample suddenly elongates more in a small region where…
It is shown that curved and flat helical double twisted liquid crystal (DTLC) in blue phase, can be unstable (stable) depending of the sign, negative (positive) of sectional curvature, depending on the pitch of the helix of the nematic…
Studies of sessile droplets and fluid bridges of a ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal in externally applied electric fields are presented. It is found that above a threshold, the interface of the fluid with air undergoes a fingering…
Handedness of the director twist in cholesteric liquid crystals is commonly assumed to be the same throughout the medium, determined solely by the chirality of constituent molecules or chiral additives, albeit distortions of the…
The study of liquid crystals at equilibrium has led to fundamental insights into the nature of ordered materials, as well as to practical applications such as display technologies. Active nematics are a fundamentally different class of…
We propose an extension of Frank-Oseen's elastic energy for bulk nematic liquid crystals which is based on the hypothesis that the fundamental deformations allowed in nematic liquid crystals are splay, twist and bend. The extended elastic…
Many lyotropic liquid crystals are composed of mesogens that display a considerable spread in size or shape affecting their material properties and thermodynamics via various demixing and multi-phase coexistence scenarios. Starting from a…
Nematic quantum fluids appear in strongly interacting systems and break the rotational symmetry of the crystallographic lattice. In metals, this is connected to a well-known instability of the Fermi liquid-the Pomeranchuk instability. Using…
The behavior of a thin film of nematic liquid crystal with unequal Frank constants is discussed. Distinct Frank constants are found to imply unequal core energies for $+1/2$ and $-1/2$ disclinations. Even so, a topological constraint is…
By means of computer simulations we study how droplets of hard, rod-like particles optimize their shape and internal structure under the influence of the osmotic compression caused by the presence of spherical particles that act as…
Recent discovery of the ferroelectric nematic phase N_F resurrects a question about stability of the uniform N_F state with respect to the formation of either standard for solid ferroelectrics domain structure, or often occurring in liquid…
We use geometric methods of equivariant dynamical systems to address a long-standing open problem in the theory of nematic liquid crystals, namely a proof of the existence and asymptotic stability of kayaking periodic orbits for which the…
A singular potential method in the Q tensor order parameter representation of a nematic liquid crystal is used to study the equilibrium configuration of a disclination dipole. Unlike the well studied isotropic limit (the so called one…
Liquid shells (e.g. double emulsions, vesicles etc.) are susceptible to interfacial instability and rupturing when driven out of mechanical equilibrium. This poses a significant challenge for the design of liquid shell based micro-machines,…