Related papers: Topological Stabilization and Dynamics of Self-pro…
Engineering synthetic materials that mimic the remarkable complexity of living organisms is a fundamental challenge in science and technology. We study the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge when an active nematicfilm of microtubules and…
Instabilities in thin elastic sheets, such as wrinkles, are of broad interest both from a fundamental viewpoint and also because of their potential for engineering applications. Nematic liquid crystal elastomers offer a new form of control…
We study the snapping instability of a spherical elastic shell induced by a viscous flow, the umbrella flipping problem when life is at low Reynolds numbers. We combine precision desktop-scale experiments, fluid-structure simulations, shell…
Active emulsions and liquid crystalline shells are intriguing and experimentally realisable types of topological matter. Here we numerically study the morphology and spatiotemporal dynamics of a double emulsion, where one or two passive…
The self-propulsion of +1/2 topological defects is a hallmark of active nematic fluids, where the defects are advected by the flow field they themselves generate. In this paper we propose a minimal model for defect self-propulsion in a…
In experiments, an individual chemically active liquid crystal (LC) droplet submerged in the bulk of a surfactant solution may self-propel along a straight, helical, or random trajectory. In this paper, we develop a minimal model capturing…
We present a generic framework for modelling three-dimensional deformable shells of active matter that captures the orientational dynamics of the active particles and hydrodynamic interactions on the shell and with the surrounding…
Topological defects are distinctive signatures of liquid crystals. They profoundly affect the viscoelastic behavior of the fluid by constraining the orientational structure in a way that inevitably requires global changes not achievable…
Interfacial instabilities in multicomponent fluidic systems are widespread in nature and in industrial processes, yet controlling their dynamics remains a challenge. Here, we present a strategy to actively tune Marangoni-driven…
When a nematic liquid crystal (LC) is confined on a self-closing spherical shell, topological constraints arise with intriguing consequences that depend critically on how the LC is aligned in the shell. We demonstrate reversible dynamic…
The topological properties of many materials are central to their behavior, with the dynamics of topological defects being particularly important to intrinsically out-of-equilibrium, active materials. In this paper, local manipulation of…
We consider a phase-separating mixture of active and passive fluids and explore morphological asymmetries of the emerging dominantly bicontinous dynamic emulsion. Two-dimensional numerical simulations reveal that the geometric and…
A nematic liquid-crystal gel is a macroscopically homogeneous elastic medium with the rotational symmetry of a nematic liquid crystal. In this paper, we develop a general approach to the study of these gels that incorporates all underlying…
We report curling self-propulsion in aqueous emulsions of common mesogenic compounds. Nematic liquid crystal droplets self-propel in a surfactant solution with concentrations above the critical micelle concentration while undergoing…
We study the organization of topological defects in a system of nematogens confined to the two-dimensional sphere (S^2). We first perform Monte Carlo simulations of a fluid system of hard rods (spherocylinders) living in the tangent plane…
Self-assembly is one of the crucial mechanisms allowing to design multifunctional materials. Soft hybrid materials contain components of different nature and exhibit competitive interactions which drive self-organisation into structures of…
The duality between deformations of elastic bodies and non-inertial flows in viscous liquids has been a guiding principle in decades of research. However, this duality is broken when a spheroidal or other doubly-curved liquid film is…
Coupling between flows and material properties imbues rheological matter with its wide-ranging applicability, hence the excitement for harnessing the rheology of active fluids for which internal structure and continuous energy injection…
Induced by proteins within the cell membrane or by differential growth, heating, or swelling, spontaneous curvatures can drastically affect the morphology of thin bodies and induce mechanical instabilities. Yet, the interaction of…
We study how confinement transforms the chaotic dynamics of bulk microtubule-based active nematics into regular spatiotemporal patterns. For weak confinements, multiple continuously nucleating and annihilating topological defects…