Related papers: Thick liquid crystalline cholesteric shells
We study the core structure of the twist-grain-boundary (TGB) phase of chiral liquid crystals by numerically minimizing the Landau-de Gennes free energy. We analyze the morphology of layers at the grain boundary, to better understand the…
We describe the basic properties and consequences of introducing active stresses, with principal direction along the local director, in cholesteric liquid crystals. The helical ground state is found to be linearly unstable to extensile…
We study the shape and texture of finite domains comprising chiral/achiral molecules carrying a tilt field embedded in a 2-dimensional surface. Using a combination of simulations and {\it exact} variational calculations, we determine the…
A wide range of disordered materials, from biological to geological assemblies, feature discrete elements undergoing large shape changes. How significant geometrical variations at the microscopic scale affect the response of the assembly,…
We analyze the behavior of a suspension of active polar particles under shear. In the absence of external forces, orientationally ordered active particles are known to exhibit a transition to a state of non-uniform polarization and…
By means of classical density functional theory and its dynamical extension, we consider a colloidal fluid with spherically-symmetric competing interactions, which are well known to exhibit a rich bulk phase behavior. This includes complex…
Building a general theoretical framework to describe the microscopic origin of macroscopic chirality in (colloidal) liquid crystals is a long-standing challenge. Here, we combine classical density functional theory with Monte Carlo…
Chiral condensed matter systems, such as liquid crystals and magnets, exhibit a host of spatially localized topological structures that emerge from the medium's tendency to twist and its competition with confinement and field coupling…
We present a theoretical model which describes the polarization modulated and layer undulated structure of the B7 phase and gives the phase transition from the synclinic ferroelectric B2 phase to the B7 phase as observed experimentally. The…
Predicting the macroscopic chiral behaviour of cholesteric liquid crystals from the microscopic chirality of the particles is highly non-trivial, even when the chiral interactions are purely entropic in nature. Here we introduce a novel…
In the past fifteen years, flow instabilities reminiscent of the Taylor-like instabilities driven by hoop stresses, have been observed in wormlike micelles based on surfactant molecules. In particular, purely elastic instabilities and…
We studied a collection of chiral active particles (CAP) on a two dimensional substrate using extensive numerical study. Particles interact through soft repulsive interaction. The activity and chirality of particles is tuned by varying…
We study the coalescence of identical viscous blisters beneath an elastic sheet both experimentally and numerically. Using a time-resolved synthetic schlieren technique, we measure the evolution of the thickness field of the merging…
We present computer simulations of the response of a flexoelectric blue phase network, either in bulk or under confinement, to an applied field. We find a transition in the bulk between the blue phase I disclination network and a parallel…
Chiral particles are experimentally investigated while settling inwater with various turbulence intensity levels. The locations and orientations of the particles are tracked over time, allowing the close investigation of the particles'…
I describe new phases of a chiral liquid crystal with nematic and hexatic order. I find a conical phase, similar to that of a cholesteric in an applied magnetic field for Frank elastic constants $K_2>K_3$. I discuss the role of fluctuations…
The geometric shape, symmetry, and topology of colloidal particles often allow for controlling colloidal phase behavior and physical properties of these soft matter systems. In liquid crystalline dispersions, colloidal particles with low…
Colloidal particles trapped at an interface between two fluids can form a wide range of different structures. Replacing one of the fluid with a liquid crystal increases the complexity of interactions and results in a greater range of…
Cholesteric liquid crystals experience geometric frustration when they are confined between surfaces with anchoring conditions that are incompatible with the cholesteric twist. Because of this frustration, they develop complex topological…
We present an investigation of the phase diagram of cholesteric liquid crystals within the framework of Landau - de Gennes theory. The free energy is modified to incorporate all three Frank elastic constants and to allow for a temperature…