Related papers: Defect-induced electronic smectic state at the sur…
Topological defects are a ubiquitous phenomenon in diverse physical systems. In nematic liquid crystals (LCs), they are dynamic, physicochemically distinct, sensitive to stimuli, and are thereby promising for a range of applications.…
The mechanical properties of a solid, which relate its deformation to external applied forces, are key factors in enabling or disabling the use of an otherwise optimal material in any application, strongly influencing also its service…
Elastic constants of splay K_11, twist K_22, and bend K_33 of nematic liquid crystals are often assumed to be equal to each other in order to simplify the theoretical description of complex director fields. Here we present examples of how…
Exotic quantum solids can host electronic states that spontaneously break rotational symmetry of the electronic structure, such as electronic nematic phases and unidirectional charge density waves (CDWs). When electrons couple to the…
Different liquid crystalline phases with long-range orientational but not positional order, so-called nematic phases, are scarce. It rarely occurs that a new nematic phase is discovered and such event is inevitably accompanied by a great…
Antiferroelectric liquid crystals can be considered as a promising alternative to nematic mixtures in the area of microdisplays. Switching behaviour of the molecules has been modelled as two adjacent smectic layers. However, some studies…
We study the effects of non-magnetic impurities on the phase diagram of a system of interacting electrons with a flat Fermi surface. The one-loop Wilsonian renormalization group flow of the angle dependent diffusion function…
The discovery of the ferroelectric nematic phase has brought with it a plethora of new polar liquid crystalline phases. One in particular is the anti-ferroelectric smectic A SmA\textsubscript{AF} phase. In this letter we show via…
The influence of controlable parameters like temperature and wavelength on the trajectories of light in a nematic liquid crystal with topological defects is studied through a geometric model. The model incorporates phenomenological details…
Fluctuations in thermal many-particle systems reflect fundamental dynamical processes in both equilibrium and nonequilibrium (NEQ) physics. In NEQ systems \cite{ritort} fluctuations are important in a variety of contexts ranging from…
The surface phase behavior of binary mixtures of colloidal hard rods in contact with a solid substrate (hard wall) is studied, with special emphasis on the region of the phase diagram that includes the smectic A phase. The colloidal rods…
We explore the smectic liquid crystal order in a cell with a "dirty" substrate imposing random pinnings. Within harmonic elasticity we find a subtle three-dimensional surface disorder-driven transition into a pinned smectic-glass,…
In this paper we study an effective model for the normal state of iron-based superconductors. It has separate, but interacting itinerant and localized degrees of freedom, originating from the d_xz and d_yz, and from d_xy iron orbitals…
The intriguing role of nematicity in iron-based superconductors, defined as broken rotational symmetry below a characteristic temperature, is an intensely investigated contemporary subject. Nematicity is closely connected to the structural…
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…
Nonequilibrium states of quantum materials can exhibit exotic properties and enable unprecedented functionality and applications. These transient states are inherently inhomogeneous, characterized by the formation of topologically protected…
Phase crystals are a class of nonuniform superconducting ground states characterized by spontaneous phase gradients of the superconducting order parameter. These phase gradients nonlocally drive periodic currents and magnetic fields, thus…
Topological surface states, a new kind of electronic state of matter, have recently been observed on the cleaved surfaces of crystals of a handful of small band gap semiconductors. The underlying chemical factors that enable these states…
We predict the existence of a new defect-lattice phase near the nematic - smectic-C (NC) transition. This tilt- analogue of the blue phase is a lattice of double-tilt cylinders. We discuss the structure and stability of the cone phase. We…
An electron nematic is a translationally invariant state which spontaneously breaks the discrete rotational symmetry of a host crystal. In a clean square lattice, the electron nematic has two preferred orientations, while dopant disorder…