Related papers: Topological Phases and Curvature-Driven Pattern Fo…
Molecular chirality leads to a wonderful variety of equilibrium structures, from the simple cholesteric phase to the twist-grain-boundary phases, and it is responsible for interesting and technologically important materials like…
We consider helical configurations of a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) sandwiched between two substrates with homogeneous director orientation favored at both confining plates. We study the CLC twist wavenumber $q$ characterizing the…
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…
Topological phases have been extensively studied primarily in crystalline systems with translational symmetry. Recent theoretical studies, however, have demonstrated the existence of topological phases in quasicrystals that are absent in…
The dynamics of a quasi two-dimensional isotropic droplet in a cholesteric liquid crystal medium under symmetric shear flow is studied by lattice Boltzmann simulations. We consider a geometry in which the flow direction is along the axis of…
Anisotropic rod-like particles form liquid crystalline phases with varying degrees of orientational and translational order. When confined geometrically, these phases can give rise to topological defects, which can be selected and…
Flagellated microswimmers B. Subtilis dispersed in a nematic phase of a lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal form a living liquid crystal (LLC). The combination of the passive and active components allows us to analyze how the active…
Self-organisation into spatially modulated structures has different nature from phase transition into uniform states. Skyrmions and half-skyrmions (merons) are representatives of such structures and are utilised in designing…
The dynamics of active smectic liquid crystals confined on a spherical surface is explored through an active phase field crystal model. Starting from an initially randomly perturbed isotropic phase, several types of topological defects are…
Colloidal particles trapped at an interface between two fluids can form a wide range of different structures. Replacing one of the fluid with a liquid crystal increases the complexity of interactions and results in a greater range of…
We use full nematohydrodynamic simulations to study the statics and dynamics of monolayers of cholesteric liquid crystals. Using chirality and temperature as control parameters we show that we can recover the two-dimensional blue phases…
This study investigates the influence of chirality, viscous effects, and confinement geometry on the flow dynamics and defect structures of cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) using numerical simulations. As chiral strength increases,…
While quasi-two-dimensional (layered) materials can be highly anisotropic, their asymptotic long-distance behavior generally reflects the properties of a fully three dimensional phase of matter. However, certain topologically ordered…
In this work we numerically study the switching dynamics of a 2D cholesteric emulsion droplet immersed in an isotropic fluid under an electric field, which is either uniform or rotating with constant speed. The overall dynamics depend…
We consider a Lebwohl-Lasher model of chiral particles confined in a planar cell (slit pore) with different boundary conditions, and solve it using mean-field theory. The phase behaviour of the system with respect to temperature and pore…
Recent experimental observations have suggested that topological defects can facilitate the creation of sharp features in developing embryos. Whereas these observations echo established knowledge about the interplay between geometry and…
We study pattern formation in gels undergoing simultaneous phase separation and orientational ordering. A 2D numerical simulation is performed using a minimal model of nonlinear elasticity with density-anisotropy coupling. For strong…
By using Monte Carlo numerical simulation, this work investigates the phase behavior of systems of hard infinitesimally-thin circular arcs, from an aperture angle $\theta \rightarrow 0$ to an aperture angle $\theta \rightarrow 2 \pi$, in…
We report on the buckling and subsequent collapse of orthotropic elastic spherical shells under volume and pressure control. Going far beyond what is known for isotropic shells, a rich morphological phase space with three distinct regimes…
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…