Related papers: Controlled Optofluidic Crystallization of Colloids…
Superfluids under specific conditions can exhibit spontaneous breaking of continuous translation symmetries and form exotic spatially ordered states of matter known as supersolids. Despite its early theoretical prediction, it took over…
Using laser tweezers and fluorescence confocal polarizing microscopy, we study colloidal interactions of solid microspheres in the nematic bulk caused by elastic distortions around the particles with strong tangential surface anchoring. The…
Optofluidic devices have revolutionized the manipulation and transportation of fluid at smaller length scales ranging from micrometers to millimeters. We describe a dedicated optical setup for studying laser-induced cavitation inside a…
Solidification of alloys in a thermal gradient usually involves the generation of flows by thermal or thermosolutal convection. We experimentally study their effects on the dynamics of a solidification interface by inducing a controlled…
The reorientational nonlinearity of nematic liquid crystals enables a self-localized spatial soliton and its waveguide to be deflected or destroyed by a control beam propagating across the cell. We demonstrate a simple all-optical…
A new mechanism for inducing convection during IR laser interaction with water or any absorbing liquid is described theoretically. The numerical simulations performed using the developed model show that the optical pressure and…
A rigid object moving in a viscous fluid and in close proximity with an elastic wall experiences self-generated elastohydrodynamic interactions. This has been the subject of an intense research activity, with a recent and growing attention…
We report on the onset of fluid entrainment when a contact line is forced to advance over a dry solid of arbitrary wettability. We show that entrainment occurs at a critical advancing speed beyond which the balance between capillary,…
Can we control the crystallization of solid CaCO3 from supersaturated aqueous solutions and thus mimic a natural process predicted to occur in living organisms that produce biominerals? Here we show how we achieved this by confining the…
Hydrophobic PMMA colloidal particles, when dispersed in oil with a relatively high dielectric constant, can become highly charged. In the presence of an interface with a conducting aqueous phase, image charge effects lead to strong binding…
Colloids self-assemble into various organized superstructures determined by particle interactions. There is a tremendous progress in both the scientific understanding and applications of self-assemblies of single-type identical particles.…
Possibility of beam combining and clean-up using Orientational Stimulated Scattering in a Nematic Liquid Crystal is considered. We numerically study the dynamics of the process and find that back-conversion process tends to limit the…
The dynamics of active colloids is very sensitive to the presence of boundaries and interfaces which therefore can be used to control their motion. Here we analyze the dynamics of active colloids adsorbed at a fluid-fluid interface. By…
We describe an approach to detecting ionizing radiation that combines the special properties of superfluid helium with the sensitivity of quantum optics techniques. Ionization in liquid helium results in the copious production of metastable…
Photophoretic force due to the optically-induced thermal effect provides an effective way to manipulate the light-absorbing particles suspended in ambient gases. However, how this force temporally responds to the intensity modulation of the…
Optically induced ultrafast electronic excitations with sufficiently long lifetimes may cause strong effects on phase transitions like structural and nonmetal to metal ones. Examples are transitions diamond to graphite, graphite to…
We demonstrate optical trapping and manipulation of defects and transparent microspheres in nematic liquid crystals (LCs). The three-dimensional director fields and positions of the particles are visualized using the Fluorescence Confocal…
We demonstrate that the active thermocapillary stresses induced by multiple microbubbles offer simple routes to directed self-assembly and complex but controllable micromanipulation of mesoscopic colloidal particles embedded in a liquid.…
We derive expressions for the leading-order far-field flows generated by externally driven and active (swimming) colloids at planar fluid-fluid interfaces. We consider colloids adjacent to the interface or adhered to the interface with a…
The ability to dictate colloid motion is an important challenge in fields ranging from materials science to living systems. Here, by embedding energy landscapes in confined nematic liquid crystals, we design a versatile platform to define…