Related papers: Liquid crystal director fields in three-dimensiona…
Topological defects are ubiquitous on surfaces with orientational order fields. Here, we study equilibrium states generated by the feedback between geometry and nematic order on fluid membranes with an integer topological defect. When the…
Anisotropic fluids appear in a diverse array of systems, from liquid-crystal displays to bacterial swarms, and are characterized by orientational order. Large colloidal particles immersed in such environments disturb the medium's…
We report curling self-propulsion in aqueous emulsions of common mesogenic compounds. Nematic liquid crystal droplets self-propel in a surfactant solution with concentrations above the critical micelle concentration while undergoing…
We analyse a recent generalised free-energy for liquid crystals posited by Virga and falling in the class of quartic functionals in the spatial gradients of the nematic director. We review some known interesting solutions, i. e., uniform…
Deformation in the lithosphere-asthenosphere system can be accommodated by faulting and plastic flow. However, incorporating structural data in models of distributed deformation still represents a challenge. Here, I present solutions for…
Herein, fundamentals of topology and symmetry breaking are used to understand crystallization and geometrical frustration in topologically close-packed structures. This frames solidification from a new perspective that is unique from…
We study two-dimensional equilibrium configurations of nematic liquid crystal (NLC) director in a cell confined between two parallel surfaces: a planar surface and a spatially modulated one. The relief of the modulated surface is described…
A state of matter in which molecules show a long-range orientational order and no positional order is called a nematic liquid crystal. The best known and most widely used (for example, in modern displays) is the uniaxial nematic, with the…
Defects in liquid crystals are of great practical importance and theoretical interest. Despite tremendous efforts, predicting the location and transition of defects under various topological constraint and external field remains to be a…
From incompressible flows to electrostatics, harmonic functions can provide solutions to many two-dimensional problems and, similarly, the director field of a planar nematic can be determined using complex analysis. We derive a closed-form…
We study avenues to shape multistability and shape-morphing in flexible crystalline membranes of cylindrical topology, enabled by glide mobility of dislocations. Using computational modeling, we obtain states of mechanical equilibrium…
In three dimensions, a `master theory' for all Thurston geometries requires imaginary flux. However, these geometries can be obtained from physical three-dimensional theories with various additional scalar fields, which can be interpreted…
By analyzing elastic theory for nematic liquid crystals, we distinguish three regimes of elastic constants. In one regime, the Ericksen inequalities are satisfied, and the ground state of the director field is uniform. In a second regime,…
Frustration in nematic-ordered media (endowed with a director field) is treated in a purely geometric fashion in a flat, two-dimensional space. We recall the definition of quasi-uniform distortions and envision these as viable ways to…
We merge classical origami concepts with active actuation by designing origami patterns whose panels undergo prescribed metric changes. These metric changes render the system non-Euclidean, inducing non-zero Gaussian curvature at the…
This letter presents a closed-form integral-equation formulation that models the director tilting in nematic liquid crystals. The proposed formulation is computationally efficient compared to numerical methods and provides a physical…
In this paper, we study an elastic bilayer plate composed of a nematic liquid crystal elastomer in the top layer and a nonlinearly elastic material in the bottom layer. While the bottom layer is assumed to be stress-free in the flat…
Electronic nematicity, a consequence of rotational symmetry breaking, is an emergent phenomenon in various new materials. In order to fully utilize the functions of these materials, ability of tuning them through a knob, the nematic…
A nonlinear model due to Soddemann et al. [37] and Stewart [38] describing incompressible smectic-A liquid crystals under flow is studied. In comparison to previously considered models, this particular model takes into account possible…
The shape of liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) with spatial variation in the director orientation can be transformed by exposure to a stimulus. Here, informed by previously reported analytical treatments, we prepare complex spiral…