Related papers: Shape Elasticity in Colloidal Bent-Core Liquid Cry…
Liquid crystals formed of bent-core molecules are exotic materials that exhibit the twist-bend nematic phase. This arises when an energetic preference for nonzero local bend distortion is accommodated via twist in the texture, resulting in…
By employing Molecular Dynamics computer simulations, the phase behavior of systems of rodlike particles with varying degree of internal flexibility has been traced from the perfectly rigid rod limit till very flexible particles, and from…
We theoretically study the nematic ordering transition of rods that are able to elastically adjust their mutually excluded volumes. The model rods, which consist of a hard core surrounded by a deformable shell, mimic the structure of…
Monte Carlo molecular simulations of curve-shaped rods show the propensity of such shapes to polymorphism revealing both smectic and polar nematic phases. The nematic exhibits a nanoscale modulated local structure characterized by a unique,…
Elastic constants of splay K_11, twist K_22, and bend K_33 of nematic liquid crystals are often assumed to be equal to each other in order to simplify the theoretical description of complex director fields. Here we present examples of how…
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…
Understanding and controlling the director field configuration, shape, and orientation in nematic and cholesteric liquid crystals is of fundamental importance in several branches of science. Liquid crystalline droplets, also known as…
The effect of short chain grafting on the liquid crystalline (LC) ordering of nano-crystals is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations of a coarse-grained grafted nano-rod model. Monodisperse nano-rods, with aspect ratios typical…
Anisotropic fluids appear in a diverse array of systems, from liquid-crystal displays to bacterial swarms, and are characterized by orientational order. Large colloidal particles immersed in such environments disturb the medium's…
The ordering of rod-like particles in soft, deformable containers emerges from the interplay of anisotropic interactions, geometric confinement, and boundary compliance. This competition couples internal particle organization to container…
A state of matter in which molecules show a long-range orientational order and no positional order is called a nematic liquid crystal. The best known and most widely used (for example, in modern displays) is the uniaxial nematic, with the…
The orientational order in vertically agitated granular rod monolayers is investigated experimentally and compared quantitatively with equilibrium Monte Carlo simulations and density functional theory. At sufficiently high number density,…
Placing colloidal particles in predesigned sites represents a major challenge of the current state-of-the-art colloidal science. Nematic liquid crystals with spatially varying director patterns represent a promising approach to achieve a…
One of the central experimental efforts in nematic colloids research aims to explore how the interplay between the geometry of particles along with the accompanying nematic director deformations and defects around them can provide a means…
We study the stability of inhomogeneous liquid crystalline states in systems of monodisperse, stiff, charged rods. By means of a bifurcation analysis applied to the Onsager free energy for charged rods in strongly nematic states, we…
We show that a suspension of non-interacting deformable particles subjected to an oscillatory shear flow leads to development of nematic order that arises from the phenomenon of phase synchronization. The synchronized state corresponds to a…
Modeling liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) at the molecular level is crucial for the predictable design of energy-conversion and stimuli-responsive materials. Here, we develop a self-consistent field theory for LCEs which captures the…
We review the impact of tetrahedral order on the macroscopic dynamics of bent-core liquid crystals. We discuss tetrahedral order comparing with other types of orientational order, like nematic, polar nematic, polar smectic, and active polar…
Recent theoretical research has developed a general framework to understand director deformations and modulated phases in nematic liquid crystals. In this framework, there are four fundamental director deformation modes: twist, bend, splay,…
Dispersed colloidal particles within a suspension can aggregate and spontaneously self-organize into a robust, percolating structure known as a gel. These network-like structures are prevalent in nature and play a critical role in many…