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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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2020-07-22 Yi-Heng Zhang , Markus Deserno , Zhan-Chun Tu

Colloidal particles in liquid crystals tend to induce topological defects and distortions of the molecular alignment within the surrounding anisotropic host medium, which results in elasticity-mediated interactions not accessible to their…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2021-12-30 Bohdan Senyuk , Richmond E. Adufu , Ivan I. Smalyukh

A two-dimensional or quasi-two-dimensional nematic liquid crystal refers to a surface confined system. When such a system is further confined by external line boundaries or excluded from internal line boundaries, the nematic directors form…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2022-04-27 Xiaomei Yao , Lei Zhang , Jeff Z. Y. Chen

We study samples and a dipolar model of magnetic rods arranged on twisted polygonal clusters in terms of the twist angle. We find that the relative twist between polygons induces noncollinear chiral phases, ranging from flux vortex closure…

Materials Science · Physics 2026-05-05 Paula Mellado , Xavier Cazor , Andres Concha

Many physical systems involve two types of orientational order, which are coupled together. For example, ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals have coupled polar and nematic order, and tilted hexatic phases have coupled polar and hexatic…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2026-03-16 Lincoln Paik , Jonathan V. Selinger

Photochromic diarylethene is known to exhibit reversible photoisomerization under irradiation with ultraviolet (UV) and visible light. Besides reversible optical properties upon light irradiation, a variety of discontinuous morphological…

For over 25 years it is known that the roll structure of electroconvection (EC) in the dielectric regime in planarly aligned nematic liquid crystals has, after a transition to defect chaos, the tendency to form chevron structures. We show,…

patt-sol · Physics 2009-10-30 A. G. Rossberg , L. Kramer

The singular potential method in the Q tensor order parameter representation is used to determine the ground state configuration of an elastically anisotropic nematic liquid crystal when confined to a cylindrical geometry with homeotropic…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-02-24 Lucas Myers , Jorge Viñals

Within the framework of Oseen-Frank theory, we analyse the static configurations for chiral liquid crystals. In particular, we find numerical solutions for localised axisymmetric states in confined chiral liquid crystals with weak…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2017-11-22 Giovanni De Matteis , Luigi Martina , Vito Turco

A spontaneous buckling transition in thin layers of monodomain nematic liquid crystalline gel was observed by polarized light microscopy. The coupling between the orientational ordering of liquid crystalline solvent and the translational…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2009-10-20 Guangnan Meng , Robert B. Meyer

We present a theoretical explanation for the interfacial zigzag instability that appears in anisotropic systems. Such an instability has been experimentally highlighted for an Ising wall formed in a nematic liquid crystal cell under…

Pattern Formation and Solitons · Physics 2009-11-07 C. Chevallard , M. G. Clerc , P. Coullet , J. -M. Gill

Instabilities in thin elastic sheets, such as wrinkles, are of broad interest both from a fundamental viewpoint and also because of their potential for engineering applications. Nematic liquid crystal elastomers offer a new form of control…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2019-10-03 Madison S. Krieger , Marcelo A. Dias

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-12-02 Hend Baza , Fei Chen , Taras Turiv , Sergij V. Shiyanovskii , Oleg D. Lavrentovich

Chiral phononic crystals provide unique properties not offered by conventional phononic material based on Bragg scattering and local resonance. However, it is insufficient to only consider the inertial amplification effect in chiral…

Applied Physics · Physics 2024-02-20 Wei Ding , Tianning Chen , Chen Chen , Dimitrios Chronopoulos , Badreddine Assouar , Jian Zhu

Helical ribbons arise in many biological and engineered systems, often driven by anisotropic surface stress, residual strain, and geometric or elastic mismatch between layers of a laminated composite. A full mathematical analysis is…

Mathematical Physics · Physics 2012-09-18 Zi Chen , Carmel Majidi , David J. Srolovitz , Mikko Haataja

Chiral twisting of the molecular orientation within the layer of a smectic-A liquid crystal has been investigated using circular dichroism spectroscopy. The results indicate that a rotation of the layers away from the alignment direction is…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2009-10-31 M. S. Spector , S. K. Prasad , B. T. Weslowski , R. D. Kamien , J. V. Selinger , B. R. Ratna , R. Shashidar

This review introduces the elasticity theory of two-dimensional crystals and nematic liquid crystals on curved surfaces, the energetics of topological defects (disclinations, dislocations and pleats) in these ordered phases, and the…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2014-01-21 Vinzenz Koning , Vincenzo Vitelli

We theoretically studied the phonon properties of the triangular-, stripe- and honeycomb-type electronic crystals recently found in two-dimensional semiconductor moir\'e patterns. By analyzing the phonon dispersions, we found the…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2023-05-02 Hongyi Yu , Jiyong Zhou

Here we study theoretically the dynamics of a 2D and a 3D isotropic droplet in a nematic liquid crystal under a shear flow. We find a large repertoire of possible nonequilibrium steady states as a function of the shear rate and of the…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2016-09-06 A. Tiribocchi , M. Da Re , D. Marenduzzo , E. Orlandini

This paper reviews the complex ordered structures induced by chirality in liquid crystals. In general, chirality favors a twist in the orientation of liquid-crystal molecules. In some cases, as in the cholesteric phase, this favored twist…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2009-10-31 Randall D. Kamien , Jonathan V. Selinger