Related papers: Light-induced swirling and locomotion
We investigate the interaction between a light beam and a two-dimensional photonic lattice that is photo-induced in a photorefractive crystal using partially coherent light. We demonstrate that this interaction process is associated with a…
Flexible photonics offers the possibility to realize wearable sensors by bridging the advantages of flexible materials and photonic sensing elements. Recently, optical resonators have emerged as a tool to improve its over sensitivity by…
Non-conductive materials like rubbers, plastics, ceramics, and even semiconductors have the property of flexoelectricity, which means that they can generate electricity when bent and twisted. However, an irregular shape or a peculiar load…
Liquid crystals (LCs) form an extremely rich range of self-assembled topological structures with artificially or naturally created topological defects. Some of the main applications of LCs are various optical and photonic devices, where…
Instabilities are discussed which take place when a nematic liquid crystal (LC) layer, enclosed between a planar reference plate and a photosensitive substrate, is illuminated with polarized light from the reference side ({\it reverse}…
A thin liquid film with non-zero curvature at its free surface spontaneously flows to reach a flat configuration, a process driven by Laplace pressure gradients and resisted by the liquid's viscosity. Inspired by recent progresses on the…
Compression-induced buckling instability of metal thin films on a compliant base result in surface wrinkles. A stiff thin film, perfectly bonded to an infinitely deep pre-stretched dielectric elastomer (DE) substrate, is considered. Linear…
Sessile droplets of a ferroelectric nematic liquid crystalline material were exposed to surface electric fields produced by pyroelectric and photogalvanic (photovoltaic) effects in X-cut iron-doped lithium niobate crystals. The resulting…
We investigate the ground state (GS) of a collisionless Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) trapped in a soft one-dimensional optical lattice (OL), which is formed by two counterpropagating optical beams perturbed by the BEC density profile…
A continuing challenge in material science is how to create active materials in which shape changes or displacements can be generated electrically or thermally. Here we borrow principles from hydraulics, in particular that confined…
Physico-mechanical properties of polymers in solid state, in particular conditions of their structural transformations, are substantially defined by existence and mobility of elementary nonlinear excitations. The localized oscillatory…
We study the structure and dynamics of a transient network composed of droplets of microemulsion connected by telechelic polymers. The polymer induces a bridging attraction between droplets without changing their shape. A viscoelastic…
Soft robotics requires materials that are capable of large deformation and amenable to actuation with external stimuli such as electric fields. Energy harvesting, biomedical devices, flexible electronics and sensors are some other…
One of the limitations of electrospun collagen as bone-like fibrous structure is the potential collagen triple helix denaturation in the fibre state and the corresponding inadequate wet stability even after crosslinking. Here, we have…
Optical solitons are self-sustained wave packets that propagate without distortion due to a balance between dispersion and nonlinearity. Their unique stability underpins key photonic applications while also playing a central role in…
We provide experimental evidence that photoalignment at the nematic liquid crystal (NLC) - polymer interface can not be simply considered as a two-dimensional process. Moreover, our experiments clearly indicate that the photoaligning…
We present nonlinear dynamic equations for nematic and smectic $A$ liquid crystals in the presence of an alternating electric field and explain their derivation in detail. The local electric field acting in any liquid-crystalline system is…
Photoresponsive materials feature properties that can be adjusted near- instantaneously, reversibly, and with high spatiotemporal precision, by light. There is considerable interest in maximising the degree of switching, and in measuring…
We describe the complex time-dependence of the build up of force exerted by a clamped photo-elastomer under illumination. Nonlinear (non-Beer) absorption leads to a bleaching wave of a significant cis isomer dye concentration deeply…
A binary mixture of ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) was used for the design of a channel waveguide. The FLCs possess two important functionalities: a chromophore with a high hyperpolarizability $\beta$ and photoreactive groups. The…