Related papers: Microrheology to Probe Smectic Clusters in Bent-co…
Particle tracking passive microrheology in 8CB liquid crystals is used to redefine the precessional motion of the orientation of nematic director in liquid crystals. Physical origin of tumbling director in presence of presmectic clusters…
Recently, a new class of smectic liquid crystal phases (SmCP phases) characterized by the spontaneous formation of macroscopic chiral domains from achiral bent-core molecules has been discovered. We have carried out Monte Carlo simulations…
The structure of nematic liquid crystals formed by bent-core mesogens (BCMs) is studied in the context of Monte Carlo simulations of a simple molecular model that captures the symmetry, shape and flexibility of achiral BCMs. The results…
The bent-core liquid crystals (LCs) are highly regarded as the next-generation materials for electro-optic devices. The nematic (N) phase of these LCs possesses highly ordered smectic-like cybotactic clusters which are promising in terms of…
The effects of dipolar interactions and molecular flexibility on the structure and phase behavior of bent-core molecular fluids are studied using Monte Carlo computer simulations. Some calculations of flexoelectric coefficients are also…
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…
By molecular modeling we demonstrate that the nematic long-range order discovered in bent-core liquid crystal systems should reveal further spatially homogeneous phases. Two of them are identified as a tetrahedratic nematic ($N_T$) phase…
Comprehensive x-ray scattering studies have characterized the smectic ordering of octylcyanobiphenyl (8CB) confined in the hydrogen-bonded silica gels formed by aerosil dispersions. For all densities of aerosil and all measurement…
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…
Using Monte Carlo simulation methods, we explore the role of molecular shape in the phase behavior of liquid crystals and the electroclinic effect. We study a "bent-rod" mesogen shaped like the letter Z, composed of seven soft spheres…
Colloidal rods immersed in a thermotropic liquid-crystalline solvent are at the basis of so-called hybrid liquid crystals which are characterized by tunable nematic fluidity with symmetries ranging from conventional uniaxial nematic or…
A high-resolution calorimetric study has been carried out on nano-colloidal dispersions of aerosils in the liquid crystal 4-\textit{n}-pentylphenylthiol-4'-\textit{n}-octyloxybenzoate ($\bar{8}$S5) as a function of aerosil concentration and…
We explore the phase behavior and structure of orthogonal smectic liquid crystals consisting of bent-core molecules (BCMs) by means of Monte Carlo molecular simulations. A simple athermal molecular model is introduced that describes the…
We use lattice Boltzmann simulations of the Beris--Edwards formulation of nematodynamics to probe the response of a nematic liquid crystal with conflicting anchoring at the boundaries under shear and Poiseuille flow. The geometry we focus…
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…
Optical birefringence measurements on a rod-like liquid crystal (8OCB), imbibed in silica channels (7 nm diameter), are presented and compared to the thermotropic bulk behavior. The orientational and positional order of the confined liquid…
Recent liquid-crystalline (LC) research is focused on structurally new molecular systems distinct from simple nematic or smectic phases. Sophisticated molecular shape may reveal structural complexity, combining helicity and polarity.…
We study the layer-to-layer diffusion in smectic-A liquid crystals of colloidal hard rods with different length-to-diameter ratios using computer simulations. The layered arrangement of the smectic phase yields a hopping-type diffusion due…
Nematic liquid crystals exhibit both crystal-like and fluid-like features. In particular, the propagation of an acoustic wave shows an unexpected occurrence of some of the solid-like features at the hydrodynamic level, namely, the…
A number of highly polar three ring rod-shaped compounds with a terminal thiophene ring have been synthesized and the physical properties of a subset are reported in detail. On cooling from the isotropic fluid, they directly transition to a…