Related papers: Intrinsically chiral ferronematic liquid crystals
Chiral liquid crystals often exhibit periodic modulations in the molecular director; in particular, thin films of the smectic-C* phase show a chiral striped texture. Here, we investigate whether similar chiral modulations can occur in the…
Recent liquid-crystalline (LC) research is focused on structurally new molecular systems distinct from simple nematic or smectic phases. Sophisticated molecular shape may reveal structural complexity, combining helicity and polarity.…
We show that the motion of ferroelectric liquid sessile droplets deposited on a ferroelectric lithium niobate substrate can be controlled by a light beam of moderate intensity irradiating the substrate at a distance of several droplet…
Dielectric relaxation of materials provides important information on the polarisation dynamics at different time scales. We study the dielectric relaxation of a nematic liquid crystal under steady rotational shear and simultaneously measure…
The phenomenological theory of the flexomagnetoelectric coupling in crystals of the cubic, tetragonal and orthorhombic crystal systems has been suggested. Secondary role of the crystal structure chirality was shown. Oppositely, significant…
Disorder in materials may be used to tune their functionalities, but much more strikingly, its presence can entail entirely new behavior. This happens in charge-ice where structural disorder is not weak and local, but strong and long-range…
The twist-bend nematic (Ntb) phase is a recent addition to the nematic (N) phases of liquid crystals (LCs). A net polar order in the Ntb phase under an external electric field was predicted in several recent theoretical studies but yet to…
We investigate fluids of dipolar hard particles by a certain variant of density-functional theory. The proper treatment of the long range of the dipolar interactions yields a contribution to the free energy which favors ferromagnetic order.…
In the hexagonal columnar phase of chiral polymers a bias towards cholesteric twist competes with braiding along an average direction. When the chirality is strong, topological defects proliferate, leading to either a tilt grain boundary…
Rod-shaped colloids with attractive tips can form linear aggregates that may subsequently undergo hierarchical self-assembly into nematic fluids. Inspired by recent modelling efforts on chromonic liquid crystals, composed of discotic…
The macroscopic magnetic characterization of the Mn(II) - nitronyl nitroxide free radical chain (Mn(hfac)2(R)-3MLNN) evidenced its transition from a 1-dimensional behavior of ferrimagnetic chains to a 3-dimensional ferromagnetic long range…
We investigated the mixed-stack charge-transfer crystal, N,N'-dimethylphenazine-TCNQ (M$_2$P-TCNQ), which is polar at room temperature and just at the neutral-to-ionic interface (ionicity $\rho \approx 0.5$). We detect the typical…
We explore surface alignment and edge dislocations in the recently discovered twist-bend ferroelectric nematic, NTBF, in which the vector of spontaneous polarization follows an oblique helicoidal trajectory around a polar twist-bend axis.…
Electric field-induced splay of molecular orientation, called the Fr\'eedericksz transition, is a fundamental electro-optic phenomenon in nonpolar nematic liquid crystals. In a ferroelectric nematic NF with a spontaneous electric…
Surface interactions are responsible for many properties of condensed matter, ranging from crystal faceting to the kinetics of phase transitions. Usually, these interactions are polar along the normal to the interface and apolar within the…
The polarized neutron scattering in helimagnetic MnSi at low $T$ reveals existence of a partially disordered chiral state at ambient pressure in the magnetic field applied along $<111>$ axis below the first order transition to the…
In equilibrium liquid crystals, chirality leads to a variety of spectacular three-dimensional structures, but chiral and achiral phases with the same broken continuous symmetries have identical long-time, large-scale dynamics. In this…
The chiral crystal is characterized by a lack of mirror symmetry and an inversion center, resulting in the inequivalent right- and left-handed structures. In the noncentrosymmetric crystal structure, the spin and momentum of electrons are…
In a ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal, the electrostatic interaction can induce a spontaneous cholesteric helix, even if the material is not chiral. If the liquid-crystal cell is infinitely thick, then the predicted pitch depends…
Polar active particles constitute a wide class of synthetic colloids that are able to propel along a preferential direction, given by their polar axis. Here, we demonstrate a generic self-phoretic mechanism that leads to their spontaneous…