Related papers: Twisted loxodromes in spindle-shaped polymer nemat…
The recent discovery of ferroelectric nematics-genuine 3D ferroelectric fluids-has underscored the importance of electrostatic interactions in shaping the physical behaviour of soft matter systems. In this paper, we investigate the…
Atomically thin moir\'e materials behave like elastic membranes where at very small twist angles, the van der Waals adhesion energy much exceeds the strain energy. In this ``marginal twist" regime, regions with low adhesion energy expand,…
A nematic liquid crystal confined to the surface of a sphere exhibits topological defects of total charge $+2$ due to the topological constraint. In equilibrium, the nematic field forms four $+1/2$ defects, located at the corners of a…
Nematic elastomers are rubbery solids which have liquid crystals incorporated into their polymer chains. These materials display many unusual mechanical properties, one such being the ability to form fine-scale microstructure. In this work,…
We study two dimensional tactoids in nematic liquid crystals by using a $\mathbf{Q}$-tensor representation. A bulk free energy of the Maier-Saupe form with eigenvalue constraints on $\mathbf{Q}$, plus elastic terms up to cubic order in…
Magnetic vortex is topologically nontrivial and commonly found in ferromagnetic nanodisks. So far, three classes spin-wave eigenmodes, i.e., gyrotropic, azimuthal and radial modes, have been identified in ferromagnetic nanodisks. Here,…
The magnetar magnetosphere is gradually twisted by shearing from footpoint motion, and stored magnetic energy also increases at the same time. When a state exceeds a threshold, flares/outbursts manifest themselves as a result of a…
Using tools and concepts from contact topology we show that non-vanishing twist implies conservation of the layer structure in cholesteric liquid crystals. This leads to a number of additional topological invariants for cholesteric…
We study the motion of dispersed nanoprobes in entangled active-passive polymer mixtures. By comparing the two architectures of linear vs. unconcatenated and unknotted circular polymers, we demonstrate that novel, rich physics emerge. For…
We have studied the structure and free energy landscape of a semi-flexible lattice-polymer in the presence of a surface. At low temperatures coexistence of two-dimensional integer-folded crystals is observed. As the temperature is increased…
Nanowire fluidic tweezers have been developed to gently and accurately capture, manipulate and deliver micro objects. The mechanism behind the capture and release process has not yet been well explained. Utilizing the method of regularized…
We show that non-entangled polymers display an elastic-like behaviour at a macroscopic scale (probed at some 0.100 mm thickness) up to at least hundred degrees above the glass transition temperature. This observation, found under…
Nano-scale confinement of polymer in cone-shaped geometries occurs in many experimental situations. A flexible polymer confined in a cone-shaped nano-channel is studied theoretically and using molecular dynamics simulations. Distribution of…
Twisted bilayer materials have attracted tremendous attention due to their unique and novel properties. Here, we derive a thermodynamic model for twisted bilayer graphene (tBLG) within the framework of the classical statistical mechanics,…
We investigate experimentally the distribution of configurations of a ring with an elementary topological constraint, a ``figure-8'' twist. Using vibrated granular chains, which permit controlled preparation and direct observation of such a…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into directional motion, giving rise to striking dynamical phenomena. Developing a general understanding of their structure in relation to the underlying non-equilibrium physics would…
Engineering synthetic materials that mimic the remarkable complexity of living organisms is a fundamental challenge in science and technology. We study the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge when an active nematicfilm of microtubules and…
Twisted cylindrical tubes are important model systems for nanostructures, heterostructures, and curved quantum devices. In this work, we investigate the quantum behavior of an electron confined to a twisted cylindrical surface. By first…
We start from a variational model for nematic elastomers that involves two energies: mechanical and nematic. The first one consists of a nonlinear elastic energy which is influenced by the orientation of the molecules of the nematic…
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…