Related papers: Tunable structure and dynamics of active liquid cr…
Dense active matter, from bacterial suspensions and microtubule bundles driven by motor proteins to cellular monolayers and synthetic Janus particles, is characterised by mesoscale turbulence, the emergence of chaotic flow structures. By…
One objective of active matter science is to unveil principles by which chaotic microscale dynamics could be transformed into useful work. A nematic liquid crystal environment offers a number of possibilities, one of which is a directional…
Active processes in living systems generate nonequilibrium forces that deform embedded passive macromolecules. To understand how such dynamics influence polymer conformation, we study a flexible passive chain in an active nematic fluid.…
We describe the flows and morphological dynamics of topological defect lines and loops in three-dimensional active nematics and show, using theory and numerical modelling, that they are governed by the local profile of the orientational…
The role of boundary layers in conventional liquid crystals is commonly subsumed in their anchoring on confining walls. In the classical view, anchoring enslaves the orientational field of the passive material under equilibrium conditions.…
Polarization flutter, produced by an applied AC electric field drives an equilibrium ferroelectric nematic ($\mathrm{N_F}$) liquid crystal (LC) through a transition into a dissipative active ferroelectric nematic state exhibiting strong…
We numerically investigate the morphology and disclination line dynamics of active nematic droplets in three dimensions. Although our model only incorporates the simplest possible form of achiral active stress, active nematic droplets…
In vivo and in vitro systems of cells and extra-cellular matrix (ECM) systems are well known to form ordered patterns of orientationally aligned fibers. Here, we interpret them as active analogs of the (disordered) isotropic to the…
Understanding and controlling the director field configuration, shape, and orientation in nematic and cholesteric liquid crystals is of fundamental importance in several branches of science. Liquid crystalline droplets, also known as…
It is well known that periodic potentials can be used to induce freezing and melting in colloids. Here, we transfer this concept to active systems and find the emergence of a so-far unknown active matter phase in between the frozen…
Active adaptive matter has attracted considerable interest due to its rich, largely unexplained dynamics and its relevance to a wide range of synthetic and biological materials. An important subclass of such systems consists of active…
We analyze a model of mutually-propelled filaments suspended in a two-dimensional solvent. The system undergoes a mean-field isotropic-nematic transition for large enough filament concentrations and the nematic order parameter is allowed to…
We simulate the nonlocal Stokesian hydrodynamics of an elastic filament which is active due a permanent distribution of stresslets along its contour. A bending instability of an initially straight filament spontaneously breaks flow symmetry…
Liquid crystal elastomers contract along their director on heating and recover on cooling, offering great potential as actuators and artificial muscles. If a flat sheet is programmed with a spatially varying director pattern, it will…
Flagellated microswimmers B. Subtilis dispersed in a nematic phase of a lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal form a living liquid crystal (LLC). The combination of the passive and active components allows us to analyze how the active…
Cultured stem cells have become a standard platform not only for regenerative medicine and developmental biology but also for biophysical studies. Yet, the characterization of cultured stem cells at the level of morphology and macroscopic…
Morphogenesis emerges from dynamic feedback among geometry, mechanics, and chemistry; however, disentangling these contributions in living systems remains challenging. Here, we focus on the interplay between geometry and mechanics by…
While active systems possess notable potential to form the foundation of new classes of autonomous materials, designing systems that can extract functional work from active surroundings has proven challenging. In this work, we extend these…
An amalgamate of nematic liquid crystals and active matter, referred to as living liquid crystals, is a promising self-healing material with futuristic applications for targeted delivery of information and micro-cargo. We provide a…
The recent finding of collective actuation in active solids, namely solids embedded with active units, opens the path towards multifunctional materials with genuine autonomy. In such systems, collective dynamics emerge spontaneously and…