Related papers: Acousto-microfluidic Control of Liquid Crystals
We show that the mechanical effect of light on the orientational ordering of the crystalline axis of a mesophase can be used to control the dynamics of the optical response of liquid crystal infiltrated photonic structures. The…
We present nonlinear dynamic equations for nematic and smectic $A$ liquid crystals in the presence of an alternating electric field and explain their derivation in detail. The local electric field acting in any liquid-crystalline system is…
We analyse the influence of a surface viscosity on the orientational dynamics of a nematic liquid crystal subjected to an oscillatory Couette flow. Approximate analytical solutions of nematohydrodynamic equations for small flow amplitudes…
Understanding the flow of liquid crystals in microfluidic environments plays an important role in many fields, including device design and microbiology. We perform hybrid lattice-Boltzmann simulations of a nematic liquid crystal flowing…
We present a general theory of electric field effects in liquid crystals where the dielectric tensor depends on the orientation order. As applications, we examine (i) the director fluctuations in nematic states in electric field for…
Antiferroelectric liquid crystals can be considered as a promising alternative to nematic mixtures in the area of microdisplays. Switching behaviour of the molecules has been modelled as two adjacent smectic layers. However, some studies…
Based on static and dynamical density functional theory, a phase-field-crystal model is derived which involves both the translational density and the orientational degree of ordering as well as a local director field. The model exhibits…
Understanding and controlling the director field configuration, shape, and orientation in nematic and cholesteric liquid crystals is of fundamental importance in several branches of science. Liquid crystalline droplets, also known as…
Despite the fact that quantitative experimental data have been available for more than forty years now, nematoacoustics still poses intriguing theoretical and experimental problems. In this paper, we prove that the main observed features of…
In these fluid dynamics videos, we show how bubbles flowing in a thin microchannel interact under an acoustic field. Because of acoustic interactions without direct contact, bubbles self-organize into periodic patterns, and spontaneously…
We observe novel positional control of a colloidal particle in microchannel flow of a nematic liquid crystal. Lattice Boltzmann simulations show multiple equilibrium particle positions, the existence and position of which are tunable using…
Nematic liquid crystals exhibit configurations in which the underlying ordering changes markedly on macroscopic length scales. Such structures include topological defects in the nematic phase and tactoids within nematic-isotropic…
Precise control of multiphase microfluidic flows underpins applications ranging from chemical processing to biomedical diagnostics. We investigate the response of a liquid--liquid coflow in a rectangular microchannel to an externally…
We explore the rheology and flow-induced morphological changes of cholesteric liquid crystal patterns subject to Poiseuille flow within a slab geometry, and under different anchoring conditions at the wall. Our focus is particularly on the…
Advent of nematic liquid crystals flows have attracted renewed attention in view of microfluidic transport phenomena. Among various transport processes, electroosmosis stands as one of the efficient flow actuation method through narrow…
Using experiments and numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the curvature of microscale conduits allow programming of liquid crystal (LC) flows. Focusing on a nematic LC flowing through U- and L-shaped channels of rectangular…
Liquid crystal networks combine the orientational order of liquid crystals with the elastic properties of polymer networks, leading to a vast application potential in the field of responsive coatings, e.g., for haptic feedback,…
We study the kinetics of the nematic-isotropic transition in a two-dimensional liquid crystal by using a lattice Boltzmann scheme that couples the tensor order parameter and the flow consistently. Unlike in previous studies, we find the…
Dynamics of small particles, both living such as swimming bacteria and inanimate, such as colloidal spheres, has fascinated scientists for centuries. If one could learn how to control and streamline their chaotic motion, that would open…
Motivated by the variety of applications in which nematic Hele-Shaw flow occurs, a theoretical model for Hele-Shaw flow of a nematic liquid crystal is formulated and analysed. We derive the thin-film Ericksen-Leslie equations that govern…