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Recent experimental observations have suggested that topological defects can facilitate the creation of sharp features in developing embryos. Whereas these observations echo established knowledge about the interplay between geometry and…
Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) composed of as few as three lipid species can phase separate into small-scale lipid domains with stripes and dots patterns. These patterns have been experimentally characterized in terms of how their size…
We model within the framework of finite elasticity two inherent instabilities observed in liquid crystal elastomers under uniaxial tension. First is necking which occurs when a material sample suddenly elongates more in a small region where…
Growth-elasticity is a powerful model framework for understanding complex shape development in soft biological tissues. At each instant, by mapping how continuum building blocks have grown geometrically and how they respond elastically to…
We consider three-dimensional reshaping of thin nemato-elastic sheets containing half-charged defects upon nematic-isotropic transition. Gaussian curvature, that can be evaluated analytically when the nematic texture is known, differs from…
We study the periodic buckling patterns that emerge when elastic shells are subjected to geometric confinement. Residual swelling provides access to range of shapes (saddles, rolled sheets, cylinders, and spherical sections) which vary in…
Thin elastic solids are easily deformed into a myriad of three-dimensional shapes, which may contain sharp localized structures as in a crumpled candy wrapper, or have smooth and diffuse features like the undulating edge of a flower.…
The assembly of colloids in nematic liquid crystals via topological defects has been extensively studied for spherical particles, and investigations of other colloid shapes have revealed a wide array of new assembly behaviors. We show,…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are rubber-like solids that incorporate nematic mesogens (stiff rod-like molecules) as a part of their polymer chains. In recent years, isotropic-genesis, polydomain liquid crystal elastomers (I-PLCEs) has…
Many compliant shell mechanisms are periodically corrugated or creased. Being thin, their preferred deformation modes are inextensional, i.e., isometric. Here, we report on a recent characterization of the isometric deformations of periodic…
While isotropic in-plane swelling problems for thin elastic sheets have been studied extensively in recent years, many shape-programmable materials, including nematic solids and 3D-printed structures, are anisotropic, as are most industrial…
Thin elastic films can spontaneously attach to liquid interfaces, offering a platform for tailoring their physical, chemical, and optical properties. Current understanding of the elastocapillarity of thin films is based primarily on studies…
The patterns arising from the differential swelling of gels are investigated experimentally and theoretically as a model for the differential growth of living tissues. Two geometries are considered: a thin strip of soft gel clamped to a…
In many biological systems, the curvature of the surfaces cells live on influence their collective properties. Curvature should likewise influence the behavior of active colloidal particles. We show using molecular simulation of…
We use computer simulations and simple theoretical models to analyze the morphologies that result when rod-like particles end-attach onto a curved surface, creating a finite-thickness monolayer aligned with the surface normal. This geometry…
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…
Flexible slender structures such as rods, ribbons, plates, and shells exhibit extreme nonlinear responses bending, twisting, buckling, wrinkling, and self contact, that defy conventional simulation frameworks. Discrete Differential Geometry…
Soft elastic filaments that can be stretched, bent and twisted exhibit a range of topologically and geometrically complex morphologies that include plectonemes, solenoids, knot-like and braid-like structures. We combine numerical…
Nematic colloids exhibit a large diversity of topological defects and structures induced by colloidal particles in the orientationally ordered liquid crystal host fluids. These defects and field configurations define elastic interactions…
We use numerical simulations to show how noninteracting hard particles binding to a deformable elastic shell may self-assemble into a variety of linear patterns. This is a result of the nontrivial elastic response to deformations of shells.…