Related papers: Structure Factor of a Lamellar Smectic Phase with …
We present important new results from light-microscopy and rheometry on a moderately concentrated lyotropic smectic, with and without particulate additives. Shear-treatment aligns the phase rapidly, except for a striking network of…
Experiments on supported lipid bilayers featuring liquid ordered/disordered domains have shown that the spatial arrangement of the lipid domains and their chemical composition are strongly affected by the curvature of the substrate.…
We analyze the changes in the vicinal acidity (pH) at a spherical amphiphilic membrane. The membrane is assumed to contain solvent accessible, embedded, dissociable, charge regulated moieties. Basing our approach on the linear…
We formulate a simple Landau type model describing macroscopic behaviour recently discovered new smectic phases composed of achiral bent-shaped molecules. Films of such smectics exhibit three types of ordering related to dipole…
Previous simulation and experimental studies have shown that some grain boundaries (GBs) can couple to applied shear stresses and be moved by them, producing shear deformation of the lattice traversed by their motion. While this coupling…
When thermal energies are weak, two dimensional lamellar structures confined on a curved substrate display complex patterns arising from the competition between layer bending and compression in the presence of geometric constraints. We…
Linear polymers and other connected "line liquids" exhibit a coupling between density and equilibrium nematic order on the macroscopic level that gives rise to a Meyer-de Gennes vectorial conservation law. Nevertheless, isotropic linear…
The eye lens is the most characteristic example of mammalian tissues exhibiting complex colloidal behaviour. In this paper we briefly describe how dynamics in colloidal suspensions can help addressing selected aspects of lens cataract which…
Ever since the raft model for biomembranes has been proposed, the traditional view of biomembranes based on the fluid-mosaic model has been altered. In the raft model, dynamical heterogeneities in multi-component lipid bilayers play an…
Lipid bilayer membranes below their main transition have two tilt order parameters, corresponding to the two monolayers. These two tilts may be strongly coupled to membrane shape but only weakly coupled to each other. We discuss some…
Recent computational investigations in polymeric and non-polymeric binary mixtures have reported anomalous relaxation features when both components exhibit very different mobilities. Anomalous relaxation is characterized by sublinear power…
Scaffold proteins organize cellular processes by bringing signaling molecules into interaction, sometimes by forming large signalosomes. Several of these scaffolds are known to polymerize. Their assemblies should therefore not be understood…
Soft materials with layered structure such as membranes, block copolymers, and smectics exhibit intriguing morphologies with nontrivial curvatures. We report on restructuring the Gaussian and mean curvatures of smectic A films with free…
Cell adhesion proteins are transmembrane proteins that bind cells to their environment. These proteins typically cluster into disk-shaped or linear structures. Here we show that such clustering patterns spontaneously emerge when the protein…
We study smectic-liquid-crystal order in a cell with a heterogeneous substrate imposing surface random positional and orientational pinnings. Proposing a minimal random elastic model, we demonstrate that, for a thick cell, the smectic state…
We present a quantitative comparison between extensive Monte Carlo simulations and self-consistent field calculations on the phase diagram and wetting behavior of a symmetric, binary (AB) polymer blend confined into a film. The flat walls…
We set up the statistical mechanics for a nearly flat, thermally equilibrated fluid membrane, attached to an elastic network through one of its sides. We predict that the resulting structural (inversion) asymmetry of the membrane, notably…
A novel mathematical model for fiber-reinforced materials is proposed. It is based on a 1-dimensional beam model for the thin fiber structures, a flexible and general 3-dimensional elasticity model for the matrix and an overlapping domain…
Bridging the gap between atomistic detail and continuum mechanics is a central challenge in modeling biological membranes, particularly for mesoscopic phenomena spanning large length and time scales. In this work, we introduce a new,…
Wetting phenomena, molecular protrusions of lipid bilayers and membrane stacks under lateral tension provide physical examples for interacting surfaces with tension. Such surfaces are studied theoretically using functional renormalization…