Related papers: Surface instability in a nematic elastomer
We address the physics of nematic liquid crystalline elastomers randomly crosslinked in the isotropic state. To do this, we construct a phenomenological effective replica Hamiltonian in terms of two order-parameter fields: one for the…
The profiles of narrow lattice solitons are calculated analytically using perturbation analysis. A stability analysis shows that solitons centered at a lattice (potential) maximum are unstable, as they drift toward the nearest lattice…
The translation and shape deformations of a passive viscous Newtonian droplet immersed in an active nematic liquid crystal under circular confinement are analyzed using a linear stability analysis. We focus on the case of a sharply aligned…
We consider reshaping of closed Janus filaments acquiring intrinsic curvature upon actuation of an active component -- a nematic elastomer elongating upon phase transition. Linear stability analysis establishes instability thresholds of…
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…
Near-critical behavior of the free surface of an ideally conducting liquid in an external electric field is considered. Based on an analysis of three-wave processes using the method of integral estimations, sufficient criteria for hard…
Photoactive nematic elastomers are soft rubbery solids that undergo deformation when illuminated. They are made by incorporating photoactive molecules like azobenzene into nematic liquid crystal elastomers. Since its initial demonstration…
We demonstrate the existence of a fluid-structure instability arising from the interaction of electro-osmotic flow with an elastic substrate. Considering the case of flow within a soft fluidic chamber, we show that above a certain electric…
A surface instability is reported in thin nematic films of 5CB and 8CB, occurring near the nematic--isotropic phase transition. Although this instability leads to patterns reminiscent of spinodal dewetting, we show that it is actually based…
The mechanical response of naturally abundant amorphous solids such as gels, jammed grains, and biological tissues are not described by the conventional paradigm of broken symmetry that defines crystalline elasticity. In contrast, the…
We discuss instabilities of fluid films of nanoscale thickness, with a particular focus on films where the destabilising mechanism allows for linear instability, metastability, and absolute stability. Our study is motivated by nematic…
Laboratory studies reveal a deformational instability that leads to a drained region (dry spot) in an initially flat liquid layer (with a free upper surface) heated uniformly from below. This long-wavelength instability supplants hexagonal…
A theoretical and experimental study of the spin-over mode induced by the elliptical instability of a flow contained in a slightly deformed rotating spherical shell is presented. This geometrical configuration mimics the liquid rotating…
A liquid jet may develop different types of instabilities, like the so-called Rayleigh-Plateau instability, which breaks the jet into droplets. However, another type of instabilities may appear when we electrify a liquid jet and induce some…
Randomly disordered (polydomain) liquid crystalline elastomers align under stress. We study the dynamics of stress relaxation before, during and after the Polydomain-Monodomain transition. The results for different materials show the…
Flexible mechanical metamaterials possess repeating structural motifs that imbue them with novel, exciting properties including programmability, anomalous elastic moduli and nonlinear and robust response. We address such structures via…
At low temperature, T -> 0, the yield stress of a perfect crystal is equal to its so called theoretical strength. The yield stress of non-perfect crystals is controlled by the stress threshold of dislocation mobility. A non-crystalline…
The capillary instability of liquid crystalline (LC) jets is considered in the framework of linear hydrodynamics of uniaxial nematic LC. The free boundary conditions of the problem are formulated in terms of mean surface curvature ${\cal…
We consider both equilibrium and kinetic aspects of the phase separation (``thermal faceting") of thermodynamically unstable crystal surfaces into a hill--valley structure. The model we study is an Ising lattice gas for a simple cubic…
Formation and rupture of vesicles is a fundamental process underlying diverse phenomena in biology, materials science, and biomedical applications. Vesicles form when the area of a growing disk-like membrane exceeds a critical value at…