Related papers: Quantifying material properties of cell monolayers…
We use a three-dimensional formulation of the cell vertex model to describe the mechanical properties of a confluent planar monolayer of prismatic cells. Treating cell height as a degree of freedom, we reduce the model to a two-dimensional…
We use molecular dynamics to study the ordering of a nematic liquid crystal around a spherical particle or droplet. Homeotropic boundary conditions and strong anchoring create a hedgehog director configuration on the particle surface and in…
Functionalities in crystalline materials are determined by 3-dimensional collective interactions of atoms. The confinement of dimensionality in condensed matter provides an exotic research direction to understand the interaction of atoms,…
Polyhedral vesicles with a large bending modulus of the membrane such as the gel phase lipid membrane were studied using a Brownian dynamics simulation. The vesicles exhibit various polyhedral morphologies such as tetrahedron and cube…
Electromagnetic topological insulators have been explored extensively due to the robust edge states they support. In this work, we propose a topological electromagnetic system based on a line defect in topologically nontrivial photonic…
Monolayers (ML) of Group-6 transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are semiconducting two-dimensional materials with direct bandgap, showing promising applications in various fields of science and technology, such as nanoelectronics and…
Topological defects are distinctive signatures of liquid crystals. They profoundly affect the viscoelastic behavior of the fluid by constraining the orientational structure in a way that inevitably requires global changes not achievable…
Coordinated motion of cell monolayers during epithelial wound healing and tissue morphogenesis involves mechanical stress generation. Here we propose a model for the dynamics of epithelial expansion that couples mechanical deformations in…
Orientational and positional ordering properties of liquid crystal monolayers are examined by means of Fundamental-Measure Density Functional Theory. Particles forming the monolayer are modeled as hard parallelepipeds of square section of…
We investigate the properties of membranes under tension by Monte-Carlo simulations of a generic coarse-grained model for lipid bilayers. We give a comprising overview of the behavior of several membrane characteristics, such as the area…
The study of spindle-like cells as nematic liquid crystals has led to remarkable insights in the understanding of tissue organization and morphogenesis. In the characterization of this anomalous liquid crystal material, we focus on the…
The properties of water can have a strong dependence on the confinement. Here, we consider a water monolayer nanoconfined between hydrophobic parallel walls under conditions that prevent its crystallization. We investigate, by simulations…
The mechanical response of cellular materials with spinodal topologies is numerically and experimentally investigated. Spinodal microstructures are generated by the numerical solution of the Cahn-Hilliard equation. Two different topologies…
Modelling of single cellulose fibres is usually performed by assuming homogenous properties, such as strength and Young s modulus, for the whole fibre. Additionally, the inhomogeneity in size and swelling behaviour along the fibre is often…
Cell membranes separate the cell interior from the external environment. They are constituted by a variety of lipids; their composition determines the dynamics of membrane proteins and affects the ability of the cells to adapt. Even though…
We present a generic framework for modelling three-dimensional deformable shells of active matter that captures the orientational dynamics of the active particles and hydrodynamic interactions on the shell and with the surrounding…
Biological active matter like the cytoskeleton or tissues are characterized by their ability to transform chemical energy into mechanical stress. In addition, it often exhibits orientational order, which is essential for many cellular and…
Two-dimensional ensembles of bent-core shaped molecules attain at highly orienting surfaces liquid crystalline structures characteristic mostly for lamellar chiral or nonchiral antiferroelectric order. Here, using the Onsager-type of…
Living cells establish long-range orientational order through collective alignment, giving rise to topological defects whose functional relevance is increasingly recognized in tissue organization and morphogenesis. Engineered topographical…
We study long-range morphological changes in atomic monolayers on solid substrates induced by different types of defects; e.g., by monoatomic steps in the surface, or by the tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM), placed at some distance…