Related papers: Design of nematic liquid crystals to control micro…

Biological systems often operate at the boundary between order and chaos, transitioning from directed to irregular dynamics to achieve adaptability and robustness. Reproducing such transitions in artificial soft matter remains a central…

In experiments, an individual chemically active liquid crystal (LC) droplet submerged in the bulk of a surfactant solution may self-propel along a straight, helical, or random trajectory. In this paper, we develop a minimal model capturing…

Active matter exhibits remarkable collective behavior in which flows, continuously generated by active particles, are intertwined with the orientational order of these particles. The relationship remains poorly understood as the activity…

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,…

Liquid crystal elastomers are special cross-linked polymer materials combining the large elastic deformability of elastomers with the orientational orders of liquid crystals. This model exhibits markedly different phenomena than the liquid…

Due to elastic anisotropy, two-dimensional patterning of substrates can promote weak azimuthal alignment of adjacent nematic liquid crystals. Here, we consider how such alignment can be achieved using a periodic square lattice of circular…

Achieving control and tunability of lyotropic materials has been a long-standing goal of liquid crystal research. Here we show that the elasticity of a liquid crystal system consisting of a dense suspension of semiflexible biopolymers can…

We investigate the effect of an anisotropic substrate on the turbulent dynamics of a simulated two dimensional active nematic. This is introduced as an anisotropic friction and an effective anisotropic viscosity, with the orientation of the…

The control of light by light is one of the main aims in modern photonics. In this context, a fundamental cornerstone is the realization of light-written waveguides in real time, resulting in all-optical reconfigurability of communication…

We analyze numerically the optical response and effective macroscopic parameters of fishnet metamaterials infiltrated with a nematic liquid crystal. We show that even a small amount of liquid crystal can provide tuning of the structures due…

We study the dynamics of a driven spherical colloidal particle moving in a fluid with a broken rotational symmetry. Using a nematic liquid crystal as a model, we demonstrate that when the applied force is not aligned along or perpendicular…

We develop a formal analogy between configurational stresses in two distinct physical systems, and study the flows that they induce when the configurations of interest include topological de- fects. The two systems in question are…

Pattern formation in uniaxial polymeric liquid crystals is studied for different dynamic closure approximations. Using the principles of mesoscopic non-equilibrium thermodynamics in a mean-field approach, we derive a Fokker-Planck equation…

Thanks to their unique properties, nematic liquid crystals feature a variety of mechanisms for light-matter interactions. For continuous-wave optical excitations, the two dominant contributions stem from reorientational and thermal…

Non-equilibrium dynamics of topological defects can be used as a fundamental propulsion mechanism in microscopic active matter. Here, we demonstrate swimming of topological defect-propelled colloidal particles in (passive) nematic fluids…

We use a fluctuating hydrodynamic approach to calculate the orientation fluctuations correlation functions of a thermotropic nematic liquid crystal in a nonequilibrium state induced by a stationay heat flux. Since in this nonequilibrium…

Via mechanisms not accessible at equilibrium, self-propelled particles can form phases with positional order, such as crystals, and with orientational order, such as polar flocks. However, the interplay between these two types of order…

Successful realization of ferromagnetic nematic liquid crystals has opened up the possibility to experimentally study a completely new set of fundamental physical phenomena. In this contribution we present a detailed investigation of some…

The interplay between active matter and its environment is central to understanding emergent behavior in biological and synthetic systems. Here, we show that coupling active nematic flows to small-amplitude deformations of a compliant…

We demonstrate deterministic control of branched flow of light using anisotropic nematic liquid crystals. By sculpting the director field via photoalignment, we create spatially programmable optical potentials that govern light scattering…