Related papers: Spontaneous helix formation in polar smectic phase
We present a comprehensive study of chiral fluctuations in the reference helimagnet MnSi by polarized neutron scattering and Neutron Spin Echo spectroscopy, which reveals the existence of a completely left-handed and dynamically disordered…
Configurations of a single semiflexible polymer is studied when it is pushed into a nanochannel in the case where the polymer persistence length $l_p$ is much longer than the channel diameter $D$, i.e. $l_p/D \gg 1$. Using numerical…
The methyl groups in hexamethylbenzene C$_6$(CH$_3$)$_6$ become magnetically ordered at the molecular level below 118 K. This is also near the temperature at which the system structurally transitions from triclinic to a unique near-cubic…
Halide perovskite semiconductors respond to electric fields in a way that varies across time and length scales. We discuss the microscopic processes that give rise to the macroscopic polarization of these materials, ranging from the optical…
Polar active particles constitute a wide class of synthetic colloids that are able to propel along a preferential direction, given by their polar axis. Here, we demonstrate a generic self-phoretic mechanism that leads to their spontaneous…
If a surface stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystal cell is cooled from the smectic-A to the smectic-C phase, its layers thin causing V-shaped (chevron like) defects to form. These create an energy barrier that can prevent switching…
We investigate the phase behaviour of a two-dimensional colloidal model system of ultra-soft particles on a substrate which varies periodically along one spatial direction. Our calculations are based on mean-field density functional theory…
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.…
Certain nematic liquid crystals, e.g., those formed by banana-shaped molecules, can exhibit a low-temperature twist-bend nematic (Ntb) phase. Upon addition of chiral dopants, a chiral version of the twist-bend phase (N*tb) can be observed…
The magnetic and ferroelectric properties of the multiferroic system Mn$_{1-x}$Co$_x$WO$_4$ (x=0.135, 0.15, and 0.17) are studied in magnetic fields $H_c$ oriented along the monoclinic $c$-axis. Mn$_{0.85}$Co$_{0.15}$WO$_4$, which is right…
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…
In culture migrating and interacting amoeboid cells can form nematic liquid crystal phases. A polar nematic liquid crystal is formed if the interaction has a polar symmetry. One type of white blood cells (granulocytes) form clusters where…
The twist-bend nematic liquid crystal phase is a three-dimensional fluid in which achiral bent molecules spontaneously form an orientationally ordered macroscopically chiral heliconical winding of molecular scale pitch, in absence of…
Electric polarization in ErCrO3 single crystals has been investigated in the temperature range of 5_370 K. Ferroelectric ordering has not been found in any of the directions. However, electric polarization induced by restricted polar…
The paper describes heterostructures spontaneously formed in PMN-PT single crystals cooled under bias electric field applied along [001]pc and then zero-field-heated in the vicinity of the so-called depoling temperature. In particular,…
Skyrmions, topologically-protected nanometric spin vortices, are being investigated extensively in various magnets. Among them, many of structurally-chiral cubic magnets host the triangular-lattice skyrmion crystal (SkX) as the…
Nanostructured ferroelectrics display exotic multidomain configurations resulting from the electrostatic and elastic boundary conditions they are subject to. While the ferroelectric domains appear frozen in experimental images, atomistic…
Hidden spin polarization (HSP) emerges in centrosymmetric crystals where visible spin splittings in the real space can be observed because of the lack of inversion symmetry in each local sector. Starting from tight-binding models, we…
Smectic order has been generated in superconducting Nb films with two-fold symmetry arrays of symmetric pinning centers. Magnetic fields applied perpendicularly to the films develop a vortex matter smectic phase that is easily detected when…
Spontaneous electric polarization of solid ferroelectrics follows aligning directions of crystallographic axes. Domains of differently oriented polarization are separated by domain walls (DWs), which are predominantly flat and run along…