Related papers: Liquid crystal director fields in three-dimensiona…
A two-dimensional or quasi-two-dimensional nematic liquid crystal refers to a surface confined system. When such a system is further confined by external line boundaries or excluded from internal line boundaries, the nematic directors form…
We studied in-plane bistable alignments of nematic liquid crystals confined by two frustrated surfaces by means of Monte Carlo simulations of the Lebwohl-Lasher spin model. The surfaces are prepared with orientational checkerboard patterns,…
In liquid crystal elastomers, the orientational order of liquid crystals is coupled with elastic distortions of crosslinked polymer networks. Previous theoretical research has described these materials through two different approaches: a…
Curved particles have been shown to stabilize a range of states with unique order in dense suspensions of colloidal bent core liquid crystals. The shape of the colloidal rods encourages the formation of curved director fields. However,…
Liquid crystal elastomers represent a novel class of programmable shape-transforming materials whose shape change trajectory is encoded in the material's nematic director field. Using three-dimensional nonlinear finite element…
We examine a simple hard disc fluid with no long range interactions on the two dimensional space of constant negative Gaussian curvature, the hyperbolic plane. This geometry provides a natural mechanism by which global crystalline order is…
Using computer simulations we investigate the microscopic structure of the singular director field within a nematic droplet. As a theoretical model for nematic liquid crystals we take hard spherocylinders. To induce an overall topological…
Disclinations lines play a key role in many physical processes, from the fracture of materials to the formation of the early universe. Achieving versatile control over disclinations is key to developing novel electro-optical devices,…
In 3D nematic liquid crystals, disclination lines have a range of geometric structures. Locally, they may resemble $+1/2$ or $-1/2$ defects in 2D nematic phases, or they may have 3D twist. Here, we analyze the structure in terms of the…
Disclination lines in three-dimensional nematic liquid crystals generically form closed loops whose topology is classified by homotopy theory. While this classification successfully captures global topological features, it does not encode…
The ground state of twist-bend nematic liquid crystals is a heliconical molecular arrangement in which the nematic director precesses uniformly about an axis, making a fixed angle with it. Both precession senses are allowed in the ground…
We investigate experimentally and numerically the defect configurations emerging when a cholesteric liquid crystal is confined to a spherical shell. We uncover a rich scenario of defect configurations, some of them non-existent in nematic…
Defects arise when nematic liquid crystals are under topological constraints at the boundary. Recently the study of defects has drawn a lot of attention. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between two-dimensional defects and…
We solve the forward and inverse problems associated with the transformation of flat sheets to surfaces of revolution with non-trivial topography, including Gaussian curvature, without a stretch elastic cost. We deal with systems slender…
A continuum mechanical framework is developed for determining a) the class of stress-free deformed shapes and corresponding director distributions on the undeformed configuration of a nematic glass membrane that has a prescribed spontaneous…
The geometric shape, symmetry, and topology of colloidal particles often allow for controlling colloidal phase behavior and physical properties of these soft matter systems. In liquid crystalline dispersions, colloidal particles with low…
We develop a molecular model of non-uniform deformations within the framework of liquid crystal rubber elasticity. We show that, similarly to the uniform case, the theory is not sensitive to the molecular details of polymer liquid crystal…
Electronic nematic order has been reported in a rich landscape of materials, encompassing not only a range of intertwined correlated and topological phenomena, but also different underlying lattice symmetries. Motivated by these findings,…
This article re-examines a classic question in liquid-crystal physics: What are the elastic modes of a nematic liquid crystal? The analysis uses a recent mathematical construction, which breaks the director gradient tensor into four…
In this paper, we investigate the Cauchy problem for the incompressible nematic liquid crystal flows in three-dimensional whole space. First of all, we establish the global existence of solution by energy method under assumption of small…