Related papers: Twist-bend nematic phase from Landau-de Gennes per…
There is considerable interest in understanding and controlling topological defects in nematic liquid crystals (LCs). Confinement, in the form of droplets, has been particularly effective in that regard. Here, we employ the Landau-de Gennes…
We develop a Landau theory for bend flexoelectricity in liquid crystals of bent-core molecules. In the nematic phase of the model, the bend flexoelectric coefficient increases as we reduce the temperature toward the nematic to polar phase…
Nematic liquid crystals exhibit configurations in which the underlying ordering changes markedly on macroscopic length scales. Such structures include topological defects in the nematic phase and tactoids within nematic-isotropic…
Molecular dynamics simulations of selected members of the cyano-biphenyl series of dimers (CBnCB) have been set up using atomistic detail interactions among intermolecular pairs of united atoms and allowing fully for the flexibility of the…
The nanostructure of two novel sulfur containing dimer materials has been investigated experimentally by hard and by resonant tender X-ray scattering techniques. On cooling the dimers through the nematic to twist-bend nematic (N-NTB) phase…
Motivated by recently discovered unusual properties of bulk nematic elastomers, we study a phase diagram of liquid-crystalline polymerized phantom membranes, focusing on in-plane nematic order. We predict that such membranes should…
We analyze the phase behavior of lyotropic nematic liquid crystals in the self-organizing flow, viz. so called active nematics (AN). Their elastic properties are mutually caused by evolution of topological defects (for instance,…
The twist-bend nematic phase (NTB) is characterized by a conically twisting director and by a dramatic softening of the bend elastic constant before the transition to NTB phase. In the recently found splay nematic phase (NS) the splay…
Resonant x-ray scattering shows that the bulk structure of the twist-bend liquid crystal phase, recently discovered in bent molecular dimers, has spatial periodicity without electron density modulation, indicating a lattice-free heliconical…
Aqueous dispersions of exfoliated, bile-salt stabilized single-wall carbon nanotubes exhibit a first order transition to a nematic liquid-crystalline phase. The nematic phase presents itself in the form of micron-sized nematic droplets also…
Using extensive Monte Carlo (MC) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we investigate how spatial confinement affects molecular organization within thin films of the nematic twist-bend ($\mathrm{N_{TB}}$) phase. Our simulations show that…
We study the core structure of the twist-grain-boundary (TGB) phase of chiral liquid crystals by numerically minimizing the Landau-de Gennes free energy. We analyze the morphology of layers at the grain boundary, to better understand the…
We propose an approach to a multiscale problem in the theory of thermotropic uniaxial nematics based on the method of statistical field theory. This approach enables us to relate the coefficients $A$, $B$, $C$, $L_1$ and $L_2$ of the…
A Self Consistent Field Theory description of equilibrium, but non uniform, configurations adopted by semi flexible liquid crystal molecules is presented. Two cases are considered, isotropic-nematic phase boundaries, and topological defects…
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…
A nematic liquid crystal in contact with a grating surface possessing an alternating stripe pattern of locally homeotropic and planar anchoring is studied within the Frank--Oseen model. The combination of both chemical and geometrical…
X-ray scattering and polarized microscopic studies of the structure and order parameters in the nematic (N) and heliconical, or the twist-bend nematic (Ntb), phase have been performed as a function of temperature. The nematic orientational…
NMR measurements on a selectively deuteriated liquid crystal dimer CB-C9-CB exhibiting two nematic phases show that the molecules in the lower temperature nematic phase, Nx, experience a chiral environment and are ordered about a unique…
Biaxial nematic ($N_B$) liquid crystals have been indicated as promising candidates for the design of next-generation displays with novel electro-optical properties and faster switching times. While at the molecular scale their existence is…
We theoretically study the nematic ordering transition of rods that are able to elastically adjust their mutually excluded volumes. The model rods, which consist of a hard core surrounded by a deformable shell, mimic the structure of…