Related papers: Liquid crystal torons in Poiseuille-like flows
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…
Shallow flow or thin liquid film models are used for a wide range of physical and engineering problems. Shallow flow models allow capturing the free surface of the fluid with little effort and reducing the three-dimensional problem to a…
Colloidal particles dispersed in a liquid crystal lead to distortions of the director field. The distortions are responsible for long-range effective colloidal interactions whose asymptotic behaviour is well understood. The short distance…
Structured light offers a promising solution for the increasing data demands of modern optical networks, opening up new degrees of freedom that can be leveraged for greater channel capacity and more bits per photon. However, its…
Liquid drops are everywhere around us and important in numerous technological applications. Here, we demonstrate a quasi-two-dimensional (Q2D) analogy to the regular, often close to axisymmetric, three-dimensional (3D) drops. The Q2D drops…
We show that back-flow, the coupling between the order parameter and the velocity fields, has a significant effect on the motion of defects in nematic liquid crystals. In particular the defect speed can depend strongly on the topological…
Time crystals are unexpected states of matter that spontaneously break time translation symmetry either in a discrete or continuous manner. However, spatially-mesoscale space-time crystals that break both the space and time symmetries have…
Directional and self-propelled flow in open channels has a variety of applications, including microfluidic and medical devices, industrial filtration processes, fog-harvesting and condensing apparatuses. Here, we present versatile…
Geometric structures naturally appear in fluid motions. One of the best known examples is Saturn's Hexagon, the huge cloud pattern at the level of Saturn's north pole, remarkable both for the regularity of its shape and its stability during…
Long, shallow microchannels embedded in thick soft materials are widely used in microfluidic devices for lab-on-a-chip applications. However, the bulging effect caused by fluid--structure interactions between the internal viscous flow and…
MHD turbulence at low Magnetic Reynolds number is experimentally investigated by studying a liquid metal flow in a cubic domain. We focus on the mechanisms that determine whether the flow is quasi-2D, 3D or in any intermediate state. To…
We introduce a 2D network built of $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric dimers with on-site cubic nonlinearity, the gain and loss elements of the dimers being linked by parallel square-shaped lattices. The system may be realized as a set of…
Here we report the first evidence of the inverse energy cascade in a flow dominated by 3D motions. Experiments are performed in thick fluid layers where turbulence is driven electromagnetically. It is shown that if the free surface of the…
We present new experimental results on the development of turbulent spots in channel flow. The internal structure of a turbulent spot is measured, with Time Resolved Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry. We report the observation of…
The effect of surface roughness on the structure of liquid crystalline fluids near solid substrates is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. The liquid crystal is modelled as a fluid of soft ellipsoidal molecules and the substrate is modelled…
By means of the variational method and numerical simulations, we demonstrate the existence of stable 3D nonlinear modes, viz. vortex ``bullets'', in the form of pulsed beams carrying orbital angular momentum, that can self-trap in a 2D…
We investigate the Couette-Taylor problem for a steady incompressible viscous fluid in a 3D cylindrical annulus, where one of the two cylinders is still, under both Dirichlet and boundary conditions involving the vorticity that naturally…
Mixing and heat transfer rates are typically enhanced when operating at high-pressure transcritical turbulent flow regimes. The rapid variation of thermophysical properties in the vicinity of the pseudo-boiling region can be leveraged to…
Liquid crystal elastomers are special cross-linked polymer materials combining the large elastic deformability of elastomers with the orientational orders of liquid crystals. This model exhibits markedly different phenomena than the liquid…
The transition to turbulence in conduits is among the longest-standing problems in fluid mechanics. Challenges in producing or saving energy hinge on understanding promotion or suppression of turbulence. While a global picture based on an…