Related papers: Computational molecular field theory for nematic l…
We consider the orientational instabilities, both homogeneous and spatially periodic, developing in a nematic liquid crystal under rectilinear oscillatory Couette flow for director alignment perpendicular to the flow plane. Using numerical…
We discuss orientational order in two dimensions in the context of systems with competing isotropic interactions at different scales. We consider an extension of the Brazovskii model for stripe phases including explicitly quartic terms with…
The structure of a molecular liquid, in both the nematic liquid crystalline and isotropic phases, around a cylindrical macroparticle, is studied using density functional theory. In the nematic phase the structure of the fluid is highly…
This paper is the second in a pair treating a new lattice model for nematic media. In addition to the familiar isotropic (I) and nematically ordered (N) phases, the phase diagram established in the previous paper (Paper I) contains a new,…
We investigate experimentally the dynamic phase transition of a two-dimensional active nematic layer interfaced with a passive liquid crystal. Under a temperature ramp that leads to the transition of the passive liquid into a highly…
The possible symmetries of the biaxial nematic phase are examined against the implications of the presently available experimental results. Contrary to the widespread notion that biaxial nematics have orthorhombic symmetry, our study shows…
We find in a model system of thermotropic liquid crystals that the translational diffusion coefficient parallel to the director $D_{\parallel}$ first increases and then decreases as temperature drops through the nematic phase, and this…
Liquid crystals (LCs) composed of mesogens play important roles in various scientific and engineering problems. How a system with many mesogens can enter a LC state is an interesting and important problem. Using stiff and free-joint…
Extensions of a previously presented Landau-de Gennes type liquid crystalline phase transition model for the direct isotropic/smectic-A (lamellar) a phase transition to the direct isotropic/smectic-C (tilted lamellar) transition are…
In liquid-crystalline elastomers, the nematic order parameter and the induced strain vary smoothly across the isotropic-nematic transition, without the expected first-order discontinuity. To investigate this smooth variation, we measure the…
We carry out Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the effect of molecular shape on liquid-crystal order. In our approach, each model mesogen consists of several soft spheres bonded rigidly together. The arrangement of the spheres may be…
Polyhedral nematics are examples of exotic orientational phases that possess a complex internal symmetry, representing highly non-trivial ways of rotational symmetry breaking, and are subject to current experimental pursuits in colloidal…
A third-order three-dimensional symmetric traceless tensor, called the \emph{octupolar} tensor, has been introduced to study tetrahedratic nematic phases in liquid crystals. The octupolar \emph{potential}, a scalar-valued function generated…
The mechanics of a flexible membrane decorated with a nematic liquid-crystal texture is considered in a variational framework. The variations on the splay, twist and the bend energy of the nematics are obtained from the local deformations…
We develop a unified kinetic theory for ordered fluids, which systematically extends the phase space with the appropriate generalized angular momenta. Our theory yields a uniquely determined mesoscopic model for any continuum with…
We show by means of continuum theory and simulations that geometric percolation in uniaxial nematics of hard slender particles is fundamentally different from that in isotropic dispersions. In the nematic, percolation depends only very…
The problem of heterogeneous nucleation of second-phase in alloys in the vicinity of elastic defects is considered. The defect can be a dislocation line or a crack tip residing in a crystalline solid. We use the Ginzburg-Landau equation to…
In nematic liquid crystals (NLCs), topological defects of a chiral origin play a role in phase transitions and lead to phase configurations of nontrivial topology, like those in neutron stars and helium in the A-phase. In the…
Nematic liquid crystals confined to geometrically as well as chemically patterned substrate on one end and a flat substrate with strong anchoring on the other is studied using non-Boltzmann Monte Carlo methods. We observe significant…
We adopt a field theoretical approach to study the structure and thermodynamics of a homogeneous Maier-Saupe nematogenic fluid interacting with anisotropic Yukawa potential. In the mean field approximation we retrieve the standard…