Related papers: Defect-polymorphism controlled electrophoretic pro…
The physical gelation of colloids produces elastic structures that are commonly used to stabilize complex fluids in multiple industries. However, the ability to control the level of elastic modulus of these materials is limited by the…
Impurity-induced defects play a crucial role for the properties of crystals, but little is known about impurities with anisotropic shape. Here, we study how colloidal dumbbells distort and interact with a hexagonal crystal of charged…
We study the morphology of the Saturn ring defect and director structure around a colloidal particle with normal anchoring conditions and within the flow of the nematic host phase through a rectangular duct of comparable size to the…
Regulation of topological structures and pattern formation is attracting wide interest in the field of condensed matter. Liquid crystals (LCs) represent soft matter with a remarkable combination of fluidity and anisotropic properties.…
We present a multiscale atomistic-to-continuum method for ionic crystals with defects. Defects often play a central role in ionic and electronic solids, not only to limit reliability, but more importantly to enable the functionalities that…
Combining molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulation we study defect structures around an elongated colloidal particle embedded in a nematic liquid crystal host. By studying nematic ordering near the particle and the disclination core…
We report an extensive molecular dynamics study on the translational dynamics of a hybrid system composed of dipolar soft spheres (DSS), representing ferromagnetic particles, suspended in a liquid crystal (LC) matrix. We observe that the LC…
There is now growing evidence of the emergence and biological functionality of liquid crystal features, including nematic order and topological defects, in cellular tissues. However, how such features that intrinsically rely on particle…
Among the many types of artificial motile nano- and microparticles that have been developed in the past, colloidal particles that exhibit propulsion when they are exposed to ultrasound are particularly advantageous. Their properties,…
We explore a novel strategy of patterning nematic elastomers that does not require inscribing the texture directly. It is based on varying the dopant concentration that, beside shifting the phase transition point, affects the nematic…
The self-propulsion of +1/2 topological defects is a hallmark of active nematic fluids, where the defects are advected by the flow field they themselves generate. In this paper we propose a minimal model for defect self-propulsion in a…
We show that back-flow, the coupling between the order parameter and the velocity fields, has a significant effect on the motion of defects in nematic liquid crystals. In particular the defect speed can depend strongly on the topological…
One objective of active matter science is to unveil principles by which chaotic microscale dynamics could be transformed into useful work. A nematic liquid crystal environment offers a number of possibilities, one of which is a directional…
We combine experiments, theory, and simulations to investigate the coexistence of nonequilibrium phases emerging from interacting colloidal particles that are electrokinetically propelled in a nematic liquid crystal solvent. We directly…
Ground states of materials with orientational order ranging from solid ferromagnets and ferroelectrics to liquid crystals often contain spatially varying vector-like order parameter caused by inner factors such as the shape of building…
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…
The role of applied fields on the structure of liquid crystals confined to shell geometries has been studied in past theoretical work, providing strategies to produce liquid crystal shells with controlled defect structure or valence.…
Ferroelectric nematic (NF) liquid crystals present a compelling platform for exploring topological defects in polar fields, while their structural properties can be significantly altered by ionic doping. In this study, we demonstrate that…
A continuum theory is employed to numerically study the equilibrium orientation and defect structures of a circular cylindrical particle with flat ends under a homeotropic anchoring condition in a uniform nematic medium. Different aspect…
We have employed molecular dynamics simulations based on the TIP4P/2005 water model to investigate the local structural, dynamical, and dielectric properties of the two recently reported body-centered-cubic and face-centered-cubic plastic…