Related papers: Controllable particle migration in liquid crystal …
We investigate Isotropic - Nematic transition in liquid crystal elastomers employing non-Boltzmann Monte Carlo techniques. We consider a lattice model of a liquid elastomer and Selinger-Jeon-Ratna Hamiltonian which accounts for…
A lattice Boltzmann scheme is presented which recovers the dynamics of nematic and chiral liquid crystals; the method essentially gives solutions to the Qian-Sheng equations for the evolution of the velocity and tensor order-parameter…
This paper presents a numerical study of flow through static random assemblies of monodisperse, spherical particles. A lattice Boltzmann approach based on a two relaxation time collision operator is used to obtain reliable predictions of…
The controllability of passive microparticles that are advected with the fluid flow generated by an actively controlled one is studied. The particles are assumed to be suspended in a viscous fluid and well separated so that the far-field…
We investigate a number of complex patterns driven by the electro-convection instability in a planarly aligned layer of a nematic liquid crystal. They are traced back to various secondary instabilities of the ideal roll patterns bifurcating…
Liquid crystal elastomers realize a fascinating new form of soft matter that is a composite of a conventional crosslinked polymer gel (rubber) and a liquid crystal. These {\em solid} liquid crystal amalgams, quite similarly to their…
We describe electrophoresis of spherical dielectric particles in a uniformly aligned nematic medium with a negative dielectric anisotropy. A spherical particle that orients the liquid crystal (LC) perpendicularly to its surface moves under…
We use molecular dynamics to study the ordering of a nematic liquid crystal around a spherical particle or droplet. Homeotropic boundary conditions and strong anchoring create a hedgehog director configuration on the particle surface and in…
We derive a multiphysics model that accounts for network elasticity with spontaneous strains, swelling and nematic interactions in liquid crystal gels (LCGs). We discuss the coupling among the various physical mechanisms, with particular…
We study numerically how multiple deformable capsules squeeze into a constriction. This situation is largely encountered in microfluidic chips designed to manipulate living cells, which are soft entities. We use fully three-dimensional…
A substantial number of algorithms exists for the simulation of moving particles suspended in fluids. However, finding the best method to address a particular physical problem is often highly non-trivial and depends on the properties of the…
We show that Brownian motion is spatially not symmetric for mesoscopic particles embedded in a fluid if the particle is not in thermal equilibrium and its shape is not spherical. In view of applications on molecular motors in biological…
We develop a lattice model for the splay flexoelectric effect in nematic liquid crystals. In this model, each lattice site has a spin representing the local molecular orientation, and the interaction between neighboring spins represents…
This article models experimentally observed three dimensional particle-like waves that develop in nematic liquid crystals, with negative dielectric and conductive anisotropy, when subject to an applied alternating electric field. The liquid…
In the absence of directional motion it is often hard to recognize athermal fluctuations. Probability currents provide such a measure in terms of the rate at which they enclose area in the reduced phase space. We measure this area enclosing…
We numerically study the dynamics of quasi-two dimensional cholesteric liquid crystal droplets in the presence of a time-dependent electric field, rotating at constant angular velocity. A surfactant sitting at droplet interface is also…
Electric field induced collective reorientation of nematic molecules placed between two flat parallel electrodes is of importance for both fundamental science and practical applications. This reorientation is either homogeneous over the…
We study the immersion of a ferromagnetic nanowire within a nematic liquid crystal using a lattice Boltzmann algorithm to solve the full three-dimensional equations of hydrodynamics. We present an algorithm for including a moving boundary,…
Self-assembly of nanoparticles can enable composites with pre-designed properties but remains challenged by reproducing structural diversity of atomic and molecular crystals. We combine anisotropic elastic and weakly screened electrostatic…
The manipulation and control of microparticles through non-intrusive methods is pivotal in biomedical applications such as cell sorting and cell focusing. Although several experimental and numerical studies have been dedicated to single…