Related papers: Helicoids in chiral liquid crystals under external…
A phase transition can drive the spontaneous emergence of chiral orders in crystals below a critical temperature. However, selecting either a right- or a left-handed phase with the aid of electromagnetic fields is challenging, particularly…
Chiral liquid crystals often exhibit periodic modulations in the molecular director; in particular, thin films of the smectic-C* phase show a chiral striped texture. Here, we investigate whether similar chiral modulations can occur in the…
In this article, we demonstrate a method for inducing reversible crystal-to-crystal transitions in binary mixtures of soft colloidal particles. Through a controlled decrease of salinity and increasingly dominating electrostatic…
We report simulations on the homogeneous liquid-fcc nucleation of charged colloids for both low and high contact energy values. As a precursor for crystal formation, we observe increased local order at the position where the crystal will…
We consider the interaction potential between two chiral rod-like colloids which consist of a thin cylindrical backbone decorated with a helical charge distribution on the cylinder surface. For sufficiently slender coiled rods a simple…
Liquid crystals are synthetic and biological viscoelastic anisotropic soft matter materials that combine liquid fluidity with crystal anisotropy and find use in optical devices, sensor/actuators, lubrication, super-fibers. Frequently…
A liquid crystal optical device made of an optically anisotropic heterostructure is considered. The device consists of a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) layer sandwiched by two phase-shifting anisotropic layers of a nematic liquid crystal…
Helical magnetic structures and its responses to external magnetic fields in Yb(Ni$_x$Cu$_{1-x}$)$_3$Al$_9$, with a chiral crystal structure of the space group $R32$, have been investigated by resonant X-ray diffraction. It is shown that…
Most theoretical descriptions of lyotropic cholesteric liquid crystals to date focus on homogeneous systems in which the rod concentration, as opposed to the rod orientation, is uniform. In this work, we build upon the Onsager-Straley…
We have investigated the relationship between the morphology of helical particles and the features of the cholesteric (N$^\ast $) phase that they form. Using an Onsager-like theory, applied to systems of hard helices, we show that the…
On the basis of the NJL model as an effective theory of QCD and analogies with condensed matter physics, we extract simple physical pictures of the chiral phase transition at finite temperature $T$ and/or chemical potential $\mu$ and…
Mixed-order phase transitions display a discontinuity in the order parameter like first-order transitions yet feature critical behavior like second-order transitions. Such transitions have been predicted for a broad range of equilibrium and…
Topology can manifest itself in colloids when quantified by invariants like Euler characteristics of nonzero-genus colloidal surfaces, albeit spherical colloidal particles are most often studied, and colloidal particles with complex…
Even though chiral nematic phases were the first liquid crystals experimentally observed more than a century ago, the origin of the thermodynamic stability of cholesteric states is still unclear. In this Letter we address the problem by…
Knotted fields in classical and quantum systems have long been recognized for their non-trivial topologies and particle-like behavior, but practical applications have been limited by the difficulty of stabilizing them. Recently, stable…
The McMillan liquid crystalline models under the influence of homeotropic anchoring walls and of external fields are investigated. For thin systems, the existence of the critical thickness, below which the system does not undergo a discrete…
Using molecular simulations and classical density functional theory, we study the liquid-crystalline phase behaviour of a series of bent rod-like mesogens with a controlled degree of chirality introduced through a twist at the centre of the…
In culture migrating and interacting amoeboid cells can form nematic liquid crystal phases. A polar nematic liquid crystal is formed if the interaction has a polar symmetry. One type of white blood cells (granulocytes) form clusters where…
Magnetic-field effect on the magnetic and electric properties in a chiral polar ordered corundum Ni$_2$InSbO$_6$ has been investigated. Single-crystal soft x-ray and neutron diffraction measurements confirm long-wavelength magnetic…
We study experimentally how the double-twist (DT) configuration of cylindrically confined lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs) responds to axial magnetic fields. Our director field model unveils the energetics behind the magnetic…