Related papers: 'Setting things straight' by twisting and bending?
Ferroelectric nematic phases are a new class of polar fluids in which spontaneous polarization is directly coupled to the orientational order, providing unique opportunities for creating self-organized materils with spatially modulated…
We study the interaction effect in a three dimensional Dirac semimetal and find that two competing orders, charge-density-wave orders and nematic orders, can be induced to gap the Dirac points. Applying a magnetic field can further induce…
A novel phenomenological approach to the analysis of the conductivities of incoherent layered crystals is presented. It is based on the fundamental relationship between the resistive anisotropy $\sigma_{ab}/\sigma_c$ and the ratio of the…
Periodic structures of phases with orientational order of molecules, but homogenous electron density distribution: a short pitch cholesteric, blue phase and twist-bend nematic phase, were probed by a resonant soft x-ray scattering (RSoXS)…
Ferroelectric ordering in liquids is a fundamental question of physics. Here, we show that ferroelectric ordering of the molecules causes formation of recently reported splay nematic liquid-crystalline phase. As shown by dielectric…
These notes are devoted to explaining aspects of the mirror manifold problem that can be naturally understood from the point of view of topological field theory. Basically this involves studying the topological field theories made by…
Recent experiments report that the long looked for thermotropic biaxial nematic phase has been finally detected in some thermotropic liquid crystalline systems. Inspired by these experimental observations we concentrate on some elementary…
Using scaled-particle theory for binary mixtures of two-dimensional hard particles with rotational freedom, we analyse the stability of nematic phases and the demixing phase behaviour of a variety of mixtures, focussing on cases where at…
Nematic liquid crystals have been known for more than a century, but it was not until the 60s-70s that, with the development of room temperature nematics, they became widely used in applications. Polar nematic phases have been long-time…
Nematic liquid crystals possess three different phases: isotropic, uniaxial, and biaxial. The ground state of most nematics is either isotropic or uniaxial, depending on the external temperature. Nevertheless, biaxial domains have been…
Within the Landau paradigm of continuous phase transitions, ordered states of matter are characterized by a broken symmetry. Although the broken symmetry is usually evident, determining the driving force behind the phase transition is often…
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…
Studies of the copper-based superconductors demonstrate how their phase diagram becomes more complex as experimental probes improve, able to distinguish among subtly different electronic phases. One of those phases, nematicity, has become…
This is a short review of recent x-ray diffraction studies of the phases and phase transitions of thermotropic liquid crystals. The areas covered are twist-grain-boundary phases, antiferroelectric phases studied with resonant x-ray…
A possibility was assessed to modify physico-chemical properties of ferronematic mixtures by introducing additional mesogenic and non-mesogenic components. The mixture, consisting of RM734 and DIO at the 70:30 weight ratio of the…
Phase behavior of liquid crystals is of long-standing interest due to numerous applications, with one of the key issues being how the presence of impurities affects the liquid crystalline order. Here we study the orientational order of…
Evidence of a special chiral nematic phase is provided using numerical simulation and Onsager theory for systems of hard helical particles. This phase appears at the high density end of the nematic phase, when helices are well aligned, and…
Liquid crystals formed of bent-core molecules are exotic materials that exhibit the twist-bend nematic phase. This arises when an energetic preference for nonzero local bend distortion is accommodated via twist in the texture, resulting in…
Selected topics in neutrino theory are discussed, including tribimaximal mixing and its A_4 realization, variations of the seesaw mechanism allowing for observable deviations from unitarity of the neutrino mixing matrix, and the radiative…
In this study, we demonstrate that when a ferroelectric nematic is confined between two glass plates coated with ionic polymers, a modulated phase emerges in a narrow temperature range between the nematic and ferroelectric nematic phases.…