Related papers: Photomechanical coupling in photoactive nematic el…
We consider a continuum model of active viscoelastic matter, whereby an active nematic liquid-crystal is coupled to a minimal model of polymer dynamics with a viscoelastic relaxation time $\tau_C$. To explore the resulting interplay between…
Stability is an important and fruitful avenue of research for liquid crystal elastomers. At constant temperature, upon stretching, the homogeneous state of a nematic body becomes unstable, and alternating shear stripes develop at very low…
Tailoring the nanomorphology of organic photoactive layers through a specialized chain of processing steps is an imperative challenge on the path towards reliable and performant organic electronic manufacturing. This hurdle generally proves…
Electronic nematicity is widely observed in quantum materials with varying degrees of electronic correlation, manifesting through charge, spin, orbital, or superconducting degrees of freedom. A phenomenological model capable of describing…
Nematic elastomers are rubbery solids which have liquid crystals incorporated into their polymer chains. These materials display many unusual mechanical properties, one such being the ability to form fine-scale microstructure. In this work,…
Surface alignment of a recently discovered ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal (NF) is usually achieved by buffed polymer films, which produce a unidirectional polar alignment of the spontaneous electric polarization. We demonstrate that…
Nematic elastomers and glasses deform spontaneously when subjected to temperature changes. This property can be exploited in the design of heterogeneously patterned thin sheets that deform into a non-trivial shape when heated or cooled. In…
We predict that illumination by a plane electromagnetic wave of optically resonant membranes, such as graphene or monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenides, directly affects their mechanical tension. The induced optomechanical tension…
We show that the mechanical effect of light on the orientational ordering of the crystalline axis of a mesophase can be used to control the dynamics of the optical response of liquid crystal infiltrated photonic structures. The…
Nematic polymeric networks are (heat and light) activable materials, which combine the features of rubber and nematic liquid crystals. When only the stretching energy of a thin sheet of nematic polymeric network is minimized, the intrinsic…
Monopole-like electrostatic interactions are ubiquitous in biology and condensed matter, but they are often screened by counter-ions and cannot be switched from attractive to repulsive. In colloidal science, where the prime goal is to…
Compression-induced buckling instability of metal thin films on a compliant base result in surface wrinkles. A stiff thin film, perfectly bonded to an infinitely deep pre-stretched dielectric elastomer (DE) substrate, is considered. Linear…
We investigate the collective dynamics of nonlinearly interacting modes in multimode photonic settings with long-range couplings. To this end, we have established a connection with the theory of spin networks. The emerging "photonic spins"…
We study the spontaneous out-of-plane bending of a planar untwisted ribbon composed of nematic polymer networks activated by a change in temperature. Our theory accounts for both stretching and bending energies, which compete to establish…
A dielectric elastomer whose edges are held fixed will buckle, given sufficient applied voltage, resulting in a nontrivial out-of-plane deformation. We study this situation numerically using a nonlinear elastic model which decouples two of…
Elastic effects in a model of disordered nematic elastomers are numerically investigated in two dimensions. Networks crosslinked in the isotropic phase exhibit unusual soft mechanical response against stretching. It arises from gradual…
The system-environment interaction is simulated by light propagating in coupled photonic waveguides. The profile of the electromagnetic field provides intuitive physical insight to study the Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics of open…
Topological photonics harnesses the physics of topological insulators to control the behavior of light. Photonic modes robust against material imperfections are an example of such control. In this work, we propose a soft-matter platform…
A spontaneous buckling transition in thin layers of monodomain nematic liquid crystalline gel was observed by polarized light microscopy. The coupling between the orientational ordering of liquid crystalline solvent and the translational…
We compute effective energies of thin bilayer structures composed by soft nematic elastic-liquid crystals in various geometrical regimes and functional configurations. Our focus is on order-strain interaction in elastic foundations composed…