Related papers: Self-organisation of tip functionalised elongated …
A theory of thermotropic nematic liquid crystals in which molecules form internally ordered clusters is presented. The formulation is based on the same mean field approximation and form of the anisotropic potential used in the Maier-Saupe…
Self-organization phenomena in ensembles of self-propelled particles open pathways to the synthesis of new dynamic states not accessible by traditional equilibrium processes. The challenge is to develop a set of principles that facilitate…
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…
Liquid crystal mesophases of achiral molecules are normally achiral, yet in a few materials they spontaneously segregate and form right- and left-handed chiral domains. One mechanism that drives chiral segregation is molecular shape…
We report the discovery and direct visualization of skyrmion clusters with mutually-orthogonal orientations of constituent isolated skyrmions in chiral liquid crystals and ferromagnets. We show that the nascent conical state underlies…
In the cubic chiral magnet Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$Si a metastable state comprising of topologically nontrivial spin whirls, so-called skyrmions, may be preserved down to low temperatures by means of field cooling the sample. This metastable…
Purely entropic systems such as suspensions of hard rods, platelets and spheres show rich phase behavior. Rods and platelets have successfully been used as models to predict the equilibrium properties of liquid crystals for several decades.…
We study the behavior of negatively charged colloids with two positively charged polar caps close to a planar patterned surface. The competition between the different anisotropic components of the particle-particle interaction patterns is…
A mixture of hard-sphere particles and model emulsion droplets is studied with a Brownian dynamics simulation. We find that the addition of nonwetting emulsion droplets to a suspension of pure hard spheres can lead to both gas-liquid and…
Ionic liquid crystals (ILCs) are anisotropic mesogenic molecules which carry charges and therefore combine properties of liquid crystals, e.g., the formation of mesophases, and of ionic liquids, such as low melting temperatures and tiny…
An analysis of the IR absorbance for the segmented functional groups of liquid crystal dimers: mesogen and linker, enabled the orientation order to be determined and information about the dipole interactions in the nematic and twist-bend…
We consider collective dynamics of self-propelling particles in two dimensions. They can align themselves according to the direction of propulsion of their neighbours, together with a random perturbation (i.e. rotational fluctuation). They…
Anisotropy at the level of the inter-particle interaction provides the particles with specific instructions for the self-assembly of target structures. The ability to synthesize non-spherical colloids, together with the possibility of…
With the aim of investigating the stability conditions of biaxial nematic liquid crystals, we study the effect of adding a non-adsorbing ideal depletant on the phase behavior of colloidal hard boardlike particles. We take into account the…
Adding a non-adsorbing polymer to passive colloids induces an attraction between the particles via the `depletion' mechanism. High enough polymer concentrations lead to phase separation. We combine experiments, theory and simulations to…
The discovery of the ferroelectric nematic phase has brought with it a plethora of new polar liquid crystalline phases. One in particular is the anti-ferroelectric smectic A SmA\textsubscript{AF} phase. In this letter we show via…
Using self-consistent field and density-functional theories, we first investigate colloidal self-assembling of colloid/polymer films confined between two soft surfaces grafted by polymers. With the increase of colloidal concentrations, the…
We studied a collection of chiral active particles (CAP) on a two dimensional substrate using extensive numerical study. Particles interact through soft repulsive interaction. The activity and chirality of particles is tuned by varying…
Active nematics are out-of-equilibrium systems in which energy injection at the microscale drives emergent collective behaviors, from spontaneous flows to active turbulence. While the dynamics of these systems have been extensively studied,…
The sticking of a soft polystyrene colloidal particle to a planar glass plate was studied by a microrheological technique using an optical tweezer to trap the particle and a piezoelectric-stage to position the plate and to sinusoidally…