Related papers: Curvature-mediated Programming of Liquid Crystal M…
In a canonical Stokes flow geometry, the Hele-Shaw cell, we show that tunable circulations induced by Lorentz forces in a conducting fluid enable particle control. We reveal that energy-optimal control paths correspond to geodesics of an…
"Active nematics" are orientationally ordered but apolar fluids composed of interacting constituents individually powered by an internal source of energy. When activity exceeds a system-size dependent threshold, spatially uniform active…
Based on a continuum theory, we investigate the manipulation of the non-equilibrium behavior of a sheared liquid crystal via closed-loop feedback control. Our goal is to stabilize a specific dynamical state, that is, the stationary…
We present a deformation-dependent propulsion phenomenon for soft particles such as cells in microchannels. It is based on a broken time reversal symmetry generated by a fast forward and slow backward motion of a fluid which does not…
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…
Here we report a surface curvature-induced directional movement phenomenon, based on molecular dynamics simulations, that a nanoscale water droplet at the outer surface of a graphene cone always spontaneously moves toward the larger end of…
Control of fluid dynamics at the micrometer scale is essential to emulsion science and materials design, which is ubiquitous in everyday life and is frequently encountered in industrial applications. Most studies on multiphase flow focus on…
We review and compare recent work on the properties of fluctuating interfaces between nematic and isotropic liquid-crystalline phases. Molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations have been carried out for systems of ellipsoids and hard…
This paper describes the application of a laser diffraction technique to the study of electroconvection in nematic liquid crystal cells. It allows a real-time quantitative access to pattern wave lengths and amplitudes. The diffraction…
We investigate the orientational behaviour of a homeotropically aligned nematic liquid crystal subjected to an oscillatory plane Poiseuille flow produced by an alternating pressure gradient. For small pressure amplitudes the director…
Minimally invasive medical procedures, such as endovascular catheterization, have drastically reduced procedure time and associated complications. However, many regions inside the body, such as in the brain vasculature, still remain…
We present a tunable, non-equilibrium oil-in-oil emulsion that serves as a model system for investigating the transition from controlled droplet deformation to multiscale flows reminiscent of turbulence. By utilizing a miscible mixture of…
We report curling self-propulsion in aqueous emulsions of common mesogenic compounds. Nematic liquid crystal droplets self-propel in a surfactant solution with concentrations above the critical micelle concentration while undergoing…
Emerging technologies based on liquid crystal (LC) materials increasingly leverage the presence of nanoscale defects, unlike the canonical application of LCs -- LC displays. The inherent nanoscale characteristics of LC defects present both…
We study all the possibilities of producing rotating flow in an incompressible fluid by electric and magnetic fields. We start with a general theoretical basis and look for different configurations and set-ups which electric/magnetic field…
In this paper, we study experimentally and theoretically the dynamics of liquid plugs in rectangular microchannels for both unidirectional and cyclic pressure forcing. In both cases, it is shown that the transition between quasi-static and…
Microfluidics, the study of fluids in microscopic channels, has led to important advances in fields as diverse as microelectronics, biotechnology and chemistry. Microfluidic research is primarily based on the use of microfluidic chips,…
This study theoretically investigates how anisotropic curved membrane components (CMCs) control vesicle morphology through curvature sensing, nematic alignment, topological defects, and volume constraints. By comparing arc-shaped and…
The ability to dictate colloid motion is an important challenge in fields ranging from materials science to living systems. Here, by embedding energy landscapes in confined nematic liquid crystals, we design a versatile platform to define…
Irreversible transport in time-periodic flows is commonly attributed to vorticity, nonlinear forcing, or symmetry breaking. We show that finite-memory reconstruction of the velocity gradient generates a purely geometric mechanism for…