Related papers: Complex Smectic Phases in Polymer Grafted Shape-Un…
We apply a recently proposed density functional for mixtures of parallel hard cylinders, based on Rosenfeld's fundamental measure theory, to study the effect of length-polydispersity on the relative stability between the smectic and…
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…
Directed growth, anisotropic cell shapes, and confinement drive self-organization in multicellular systems. We investigate the influence of particle shape on the distribution and dynamics of nematic microdomains in a minimal in-silico model…
This work further investigates an aspect of the phase behavior of hard circular arcs, whose phase diagram has been recently calculated by Monte Carlo numerical simulations: the non-nematicity of the filamentary phase that hard minor…
Elongated colloidal rods at sufficient packing conditions are known to form stable lamellar or smectic phases. Using a simplified volume-exclusion model, we propose a generic equation-of-state for hard-rod smectics that is robust against…
In many high temperature superconductors, small orthorhombic distortions of the lattice structure result in surprisingly large symmetry breaking of the electronic states and macroscopic properties, an effect often referred to as nematicity.…
Recently we have formulated theory of bi-layer-dimerized chiral liquid antiferroelectric crystals. The spontaneous polarization has been increased owing to the strong interaction of the aromatic cores of the rod like liquid crystal…
Recently, a new class of smectic liquid crystal phases (SmCP phases) characterized by the spontaneous formation of macroscopic chiral domains from achiral bent-core molecules has been discovered. We have carried out Monte Carlo simulations…
Soft modulated phases have been shown to undergo complex morphological transitions, in which layer remodeling induced by mean and Gaussian curvatures plays a major role. This is the case in smectic films under thermal treatment, where focal…
We present a molecular dynamics study of the flow of rigid spherical nanoparticles in a simple fluid. We evaluate the viscosity of the dispersion as a function of shear rate and nanoparticle volume fraction. We observe shear thinning…
The ability to manipulate polar entities with multiple external fields opens exciting possibilities for emerging functionalities and novel applications in spin systems, photonics, metamaterials, and soft matter. Liquid crystals (LCs),…
Comprehensive x-ray scattering studies have characterized the smectic ordering of octylcyanobiphenyl (8CB) confined in the hydrogen-bonded silica gels formed by aerosil dispersions. For all densities of aerosil and all measurement…
Monodisperse rod-like colloidal particles are known for spontaneously forming both nematic and smectic liquid crystal phases, but their self-assembly was typically exploited from the fundamental soft condensed matter physics perspective.…
Self-positioned nanomembranes such as rolled-up tubes and wrinkled thin films have been potential systems for a variety of applications and basic studies on elastic properties of nanometer-thick systems. Although there is a clear driving…
We study smectic liquid crystals in random environments, e.g., aerogel. A low temperature analysis reveals that even arbitrarily weak quenched disorder (i.e., arbitrarily low aerogel density) destroys translational (smectic) order. A…
Many soft-matter and biophysical systems are composed of monomers which reversibly assemble into rod-like aggregates. The aggregates can then order into liquid-crystal phases if the density is high enough, and liquid-crystal ordering…
Recent experiments on vesicles formed from block copolymers with liquid-crystalline side-chains reveal a rich variety of vesicle morphologies. The additional internal order ("structure") developed by these self-assembled block copolymer…
The discovery of fluid states of matter with spontaneous bulk polar order is appreciated as a major discovery in the fields of soft matter and liquid crystals. Typically, this manifests as polar order superimposed atop conventional phase…
We map out the solid-state morphologies formed by model soft-pearl-necklace polymers as a function of bending stiffness $k_b$ spanning the range from fully flexible to rodlike chains. The ratio of Kuhn length to bead diameter ($l_K/r_0$)…
Lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs) represent aqueous dispersions of organic disk-like molecules that form cylindrical aggregates. Despite the growing interest in these materials, their flow behavior is poorly understood. Here, we…