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We demonstrate facile optical manipulation of shape of birefringent colloidal microparticles made from liquid crystal elastomers. Using soft lithography and polymerization, we fabricate elastomeric microcylinders with weakly undulating…
Topology can manifest itself in colloids when quantified by invariants like Euler characteristics of nonzero-genus colloidal surfaces, albeit spherical colloidal particles are most often studied, and colloidal particles with complex…
Colloidal inclusions in nematic fluids induce topological defects that govern their dynamics. These defects create well-understood rheological behavior in passive nematics, but the interplay between colloid-associated defects and…
In this paper we investigate the dynamics of liquid crystal textures in a two-dimensional nematic under applied electric fields, using numerical simulations performed using a publicly available LIquid CRystal Algorithm (LICRA) developed by…
In recent years, experimental and theoretical investigations have shown that anisotropic colloids can self-organise into ordered porous monolayers, where the interplay of localised bonding sites, so called patches, with the particle's shape…
We investigate the stability of a circular electrodes-coated dielectric membrane under the combined action of an electric field and all-round in-plane tension. It is known that such a membrane is susceptible to the limiting point…
We investigate the sedimentation and vertical hydraulic transport of irregular polymetallic nodules (PMNs) using resolved CFD-DEM with multisphere particles spanning $100 < Re_p < 3000$. Shape effects induce 2.0-2.3 times drag enhancement…
From incompressible flows to electrostatics, harmonic functions can provide solutions to many two-dimensional problems and, similarly, the director field of a planar nematic can be determined using complex analysis. We derive a closed-form…
Optical modes of a multilayered photonic structure with the twisted nematic liquid crystal as a defect layer have been investigated. The electroconvective flow in the nematic makes a spatially periodic structure in the form of abnormal…
We investigate experimentally and numerically the defect configurations emerging when a cholesteric liquid crystal is confined to a spherical shell. We uncover a rich scenario of defect configurations, some of them non-existent in nematic…
We investigate the effect of an anisotropic substrate on the turbulent dynamics of a simulated two dimensional active nematic. This is introduced as an anisotropic friction and an effective anisotropic viscosity, with the orientation of the…
We explore the structure of nuclei and topological defects in the first-order phase transition between the nematic (N) and isotropic (I) phases in lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs). The LCLCs are formed by self-assembled molecular…
We propose a hybrid lattice Boltzmann algorithm to simulate the hydrodynamics of colloidal particles inside a liquid crystalline host. To validate our algorithm, we study the static and the microrheology of a colloid in a nematic, with…
We demonstrate deterministic control of branched flow of light using anisotropic nematic liquid crystals. By sculpting the director field via photoalignment, we create spatially programmable optical potentials that govern light scattering…
We consider the shape evolution of two-dimensional islands on a crystal surface in the regime where mass transport is exclusively along the island edge. A directed mass current due to surface electromigration causes the island to migrate in…
We report experimental studies on optical (birefringence, $\Delta n$), dielectric $(\Delta \varepsilon)$ and bend-splay elastic anisotropies ($\Delta K=K_{33}-K_{11})$ of a few mixtures of two nematic liquid crystals, namely CCH-7 and…
Point-like topological defects are singular configurations that occur in a variety of in and out of equilibrium systems with two-dimensional orientational order. As they are associated with a nonzero circuitation condition, the presence of…
In experiments, an individual chemically active liquid crystal (LC) droplet submerged in the bulk of a surfactant solution may self-propel along a straight, helical, or random trajectory. In this paper, we develop a minimal model capturing…
Nonlinear electrokinetic phenomena, where electrically driven fluid flows depend nonlinearly on the applied voltage, are commonly encountered in aqueous suspensions of colloidal particles. A prime example is the induced-charge…
In culture migrating and interacting amoeboid cells can form nematic liquid crystal phases. A polar nematic liquid crystal is formed if the interaction has a polar symmetry. One type of white blood cells (granulocytes) form clusters where…