Related papers: Aggregation Phenomena in Lyotropic Chromonic Liqui…
We have developed a class of idealized models of chromonic molecules which are miscible in water, but which can form aggregates which in turn organize into lyotropic liquid crystal (LC) phases. By carrying out Monte Carlo simulation in a…
Chromonic liquid crystals (CLCs) are lyotropic materials which are attracting growing interest for their adaptability to living systems. A considerable body of works has been devoted to exploring their properties and applications. In this…
Nuclei of ordered materials emerging from the isotropic state usually show a shape topologically equivalent to a sphere; the well-known examples are crystals and nematic liquid crystal droplets. In this work, we explore experimentally and…
Chromonic liquid crystals are lyotropic materials which are attracting growing interest for their adapatbility to living systems. To describe their elastic properties, the classical Oseen-Frank theory requires anomalously small twist…
Chromonic liquid crystals constitute a novel lyotropic phase, whose elastic properties have so far been modeled within the classical Oseen-Frank theory, provided that the twist constant is assumed to be considerably smaller than the…
The surface alignment of lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs) can be not only planar (tangential) but also homeotropic, with self-assembled aggregates perpendicular to the substrate, as demonstrated by mapping optical retardation and…
Many soft-matter and biophysical systems are composed of monomers which reversibly assemble into rod-like aggregates. The aggregates can then order into liquid-crystal phases if the density is high enough, and liquid-crystal ordering…
Motivated by recent experiments, the isotropic-nematic phase transition in chromonic liquid crystals is studied. As temperature decreases, nematic nuclei nucleate, grow, and coalesce, giving rise to tactoid microstructures in an isotropic…
We explore the diffusion dynamics of a Brownian microparticle in a lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal (LCLC). In the planarly oriented nematic phase, the microparticle exhibits levitation and anisotropic two-dimensional diffusion. Upon…
The interplay among solute and solvent molecules in lyotropic mesophases governs their physicochemical properties, such as phase behaviors and viscoelasticity. In our model system, a lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal (LCLC) made by…
We propose lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs) as a distinct class of materials for organic electronics. In water, the chromonic molecules stack on top of each other into elongated aggregates that form orientationally ordered…
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…
Systems of elongated molecules, doped with small amounts of molecules lacking mirror symmetry can form macroscopically twisted cholesteric liquid crystal phases. The aim of this work is to rigorously derive the Oseen-Frank model of…
We investigate theoretically the fluid-crystal coexistence of solutions of globular charged nanoparticles like proteins and inorganic colloids. The thermodynamic properties of the fluid phase are computed via the optimized Baxter model.…
Lyotropic liquid crystals can display rich phase behaviour and self-organisation, yet the physical principles underlying their self-assembly into large scale patterns remains understudied. Here, we combine theory, simulations and…
The geometric shape, symmetry, and topology of colloidal particles often allow for controlling colloidal phase behavior and physical properties of these soft matter systems. In liquid crystalline dispersions, colloidal particles with low…
Using computer simulations we investigate the microscopic structure of the singular director field within a nematic droplet. As a theoretical model for nematic liquid crystals we take hard spherocylinders. To induce an overall topological…
The topology and the geometry of a surface play a fundamental role in determining the equilibrium configurations of thin films of liquid crystals. We propose here a theoretical analysis of a recently introduced surface Frank energy, in the…
This paper summarizes a talk presented at the April NATO ASI on Spatiotemporal Chaos in Complex Fluids, in Santa Fe, NM. The paper gives reasons that make complex fluids good material systems for conducting experiments on pattern formation…
Liquid crystals are assemblies of rod-like molecules which self-organize to form mesophases, in-between ordinary liquids and anisotropic crystals. At each point, the molecules collectively orient themselves along a privileged direction,…