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We consider a thin film limit of a Landau-de Gennes Q-tensor model. In the limiting process we observe a continuous transition where the normal and tangential parts of the Q-tensor decouple and various intrinsic and extrinsic contributions…
In recent years, slippery surfaces have attracted significant interest due to their excellent liquid-repellent properties and their potential in diverse commercial applications. Such surfaces are prepared by coating functionalized solid…
Wrinkles commonly develop in a thin film deposited on a soft elastomer substrate when the film is subject to compression. Motivated by recent experiments [Agrawal et al., Soft Matter 8, 7138 (2012)] that show how wrinkle morphology can be…
We present a Landau type theory for the non-linear elasticity of biopolymer gels with a part of the order parameter describing induced nematic order of fibers in the gel. We attribute the non-linear elastic behavior of these materials to…
Light propagation through artificially patterned anisotropic materials, such as dielectric metasurfaces, enables precise control of the spatio-vectorial properties of optical fields using highly transparent, thin, and flat optical elements.…
The reorientational nonlinearity of nematic liquid crystals enables a self-localized spatial soliton and its waveguide to be deflected or destroyed by a control beam propagating across the cell. We demonstrate a simple all-optical…
A microfluidic device is constructed from PDMS with a single channel having a short section that is a thin flexible membrane, in order to investigate the complex fluid-structure interaction that arises between a flowing fluid and a…
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,…
Fast and programmable transport of liquid droplets on a solid substrate is desirable in microfluidic, thermal, biomedical, and energy devices. Past research has focused on designing substrates with asymmetric structures or gradient…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are elastomeric networks with rod-like mesogens that reorient under load. In polydomain LCEs, this reorientation drives a polydomain-to-monodomain transition that produces a soft-elastic plateau. Coupling…
Optical metamaterials and metasurfaces which emerged in the course of the last few decades have revolutionized our understanding of light and light-matter interaction. While solid materials are naturally employed as key building elements…
Photoactive liquid crystal elastomers are polymer networks of liquid crystal mesogens embedded with chromophores like azobenzene. They undergo large deformation when illuminated by light of a certain wavelength through photochemical…
Liquid crystal elastomers realize a fascinating new form of soft matter that is a composite of a conventional crosslinked polymer gel (rubber) and a liquid crystal. These {\em solid} liquid crystal amalgams, quite similarly to their…
The ability to synthesize and control two-dimensional (2D) crystals creates numerous opportunities for studying emergent states of matter and their novel functionalities. Freestanding films provide a particularly versatile platform for…
In this article, we study minimization of the Landau-de Gennes energy for liquid crystal elastomer.The total energy, is of the sum of the Lagrangian elastic stored energy function of the elastomer and the Eulerian Landau-de Gennes energy of…
Discrete mesoscale network models, in which explicitly modeled polymer chains are replaced by implicit pairwise potentials, are capable of predicting the macroscale mechanical response of polymeric materials such as elastomers and gels,…
We show that the mechanical effect of light on the orientational ordering of the crystalline axis of a mesophase can be used to control the dynamics of the optical response of liquid crystal infiltrated photonic structures. The…
When a solid substrate is withdrawn from a bath of simple, partially wetting, nonvolatile liquid, one typically distinguishes two regimes, namely, after withdrawal the substrate is macroscopically dry or homogeneously coated by a liquid…
The paper is concerned with various issues surrounding the mathematical description of defects in models of liquid crystals, drawing on experience from solid mechanics. The roles played by a suitable choice of function space and by the…
Langmuir monolayers are advantageous systems used to investigate how lipid membranes get involved in the physiology of many living structures, such as collapse phenomena in alveolar structures. Much work focuses on characterizing the…