Related papers: Spatially twisted liquid-crystal devices
When nematic liquid crystals are embedded in random polymer networks, the disordered environment disrupts the long-range order, producing a glassy state. If an electric field is applied, it induces large and fairly temperature-independent…
Liquid crystalline polymers are materials of considerable scientific interest and technological value to society [1-3]. An important subset of such materials exhibit rubber-like elasticity; these can combine the remarkable optical…
The $q$-plate is a spatially inhomogeneous SU(2) birefringent optical element that has garnered significant interest due to its ability to mediate the spin-orbit interaction of light and facilitate the generation of optical vortices. The…
A nematic liquid crystal in contact with a grating surface possessing an alternating stripe pattern of locally homeotropic and planar anchoring is studied within the Frank--Oseen model. The combination of both chemical and geometrical…
Vortex crystals are geometric arrays of vortices found in various physics fields, owing their regular internal structure to mutual interactions within a spatially confined system. In optics, vortex crystals may form spontaneously within a…
Due to the intertwining between electronic nematic and elastic degrees of freedom, lattice defects and structural inhomogeneities commonly found in crystals can have a significant impact on the electronic properties of nematic materials.…
An amalgamate of nematic liquid crystals and active matter, referred to as living liquid crystals, is a promising self-healing material with futuristic applications for targeted delivery of information and micro-cargo. We provide a…
We investigate experimentally the dynamic phase transition of a two-dimensional active nematic layer interfaced with a passive liquid crystal. Under a temperature ramp that leads to the transition of the passive liquid into a highly…
Self organizing anisotropic nematic liquid crystals (LCs) induce self-assembly on quantum dots (QDs) to form one-dimensional chains along the nematic director. Spatial ordering of QDs, achieved in the nematic LC matrix, can be controlled in…
Liquid-crystal devices (LCDs) offer a potential route toward adaptive optical components for use in the < 2 THz band of the electromagnetic spectrum. We demonstrate LCDs using a commercially available material (E7), with unbiased…
A nematic liquid-crystal gel is a macroscopically homogeneous elastic medium with the rotational symmetry of a nematic liquid crystal. In this paper, we develop a general approach to the study of these gels that incorporates all underlying…
Tunable metasurfaces have demonstrated the potential for dramatically enhanced functionality for applications including sensing, ranging and imaging. Liquid crystals (LCs) have fast switching speeds, low cost, and mature technological…
An inhomogeneous anisotropic medium with specific structure geometry can apply the tunable spin-dependent geometrical phase to the light passing through the medium, and thus can be used to steer the spin-dependent splitting (SDS) of light.…
We show that stable, freely suspended liquid crystal films can be made from the ferroelectric nematic ($\mathrm{N_F}$) phase and from the recently discovered polar, lamellar $\mathrm{SmZ_A}$ and $\mathrm{SmA_F}$ phases. The $\mathrm{N_F}$…
In addition to a plethora of emergent phenomena, the spatial topology of optical vortices enables an array of applications spanning communications to quantum photonics. Nonlinear optics is essential in this context, providing access to an…
Nematic solids respond strongly to changes in ambient heat or light, significantly differently parallel and perpendicular to the director. This phenomenon is well characterized for uniform director fields, but not for defect textures. We…
Electronic nematic and smectic liquid crystals are spontaneous symmetry-breaking phases that are seen to precede or coexist with enigmatic unconventional superconducting states in multiple classes of materials. In this Letter we describe…
Liquid crystals (LCs) play a fundamental and significant role in modern technology. Recently, they have also been used in active switching, adaptive optics, and next-generation displays for augmented and virtual reality. This is due to the…
We demonstrate experimentally that the interactions between a pair of nonlocal spatial optical solitons in a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) can be controlled by the degree of nonlocality. For a given beam width, the degree of nonlocality can…
A flux liquid can condense into a smectic crystal in a pure layered superconductors with the magnetic field oriented nearly parallel to the layers. If the smectic order is commensurate with the layering, this crystal is {\sl stable} to…