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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…
Natural bacterial habitats are often complex fluids with viscoelastic and anisotropic responses to stress; for example, they can take the form of liquid crystals (LCs), with elongated microscopic constituents that collectively align while…
We study the self-assembly of colloidal microgel particles at a quasi-two-dimensional air-water interface of a drying droplet. Using bright-field microscopy, we demonstrate that increasing particle elasticity drives interfacial organization…
We propose the use of topographic modulation of surfaces to select and localize particles in nematic colloids. By considering convex and concave deformations of one of the confining surfaces we show that the colloid-flat surface repulsion…
The study of spindle-like cells as nematic liquid crystals has led to remarkable insights in the understanding of tissue organization and morphogenesis. In the characterization of this anomalous liquid crystal material, we focus on the…
Colloidal particles are often seen as big atoms that can be directly observed in real space. They are therefore playing an increasingly important role as model systems to study processes of interest in condensed matter physics such as…
Weakly attractive interactions between the tips of rod-like colloidal particles affect their liquid-crystal phase behaviour due to a subtle interplay between enthalpy and entropy. Here, we employ molecular dynamics simulations on…
The physical mechanism of elasticity of liquid surfaces coated with colloidal particles is proposed. It is suggested that particles are separated by water clearings and the capillary interaction between them is negligible. The case is…
Active nematics are out-of-equilibrium systems in which energy injection at the microscale drives emergent collective behaviors, from spontaneous flows to active turbulence. While the dynamics of these systems have been extensively studied,…
Colloids self-assemble into various organized superstructures determined by particle interactions. There is a tremendous progress in both the scientific understanding and applications of self-assemblies of single-type identical particles.…
Using laser tweezers and fluorescence confocal polarizing microscopy, we study colloidal interactions of solid microspheres in the nematic bulk caused by elastic distortions around the particles with strong tangential surface anchoring. The…
We investigated the physical properties of low concentration ferroelectric nematic colloids, using calorimetry, optical methods, infra-red spectroscopy and capacitance studies. The resulting colloids normally remain homogeneous, but the…
Rod-shaped colloids with attractive tips can form linear aggregates that may subsequently undergo hierarchical self-assembly into nematic fluids. Inspired by recent modelling efforts on chromonic liquid crystals, composed of discotic…
We report temperature-responsive soft composites of semiflexible biopolymer networks (fibrin) containing dispersed microgel colloidal particles of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) that undergo a thermodynamically driven de-swelling…
We report filling-fraction dependent dielectric spectroscopy measurements on the relaxation dynamics of the rod-like nematogen 7CB condensed in 13 nm silica nanochannels. In the film-condensed regime, a slow interface relaxation dominates…
Prominences show a surprising amount of fine structure and it is widely believed that their threads, as seen in H$\alpha$ observations, provide indirect information concerning magnetic field topology. We investigate the spontaneous…
Precipitation of fine particles into the base material of a metal is a potent strengthening mechanism. This is numerically analyzed within a continuum framework based on a higher order strain gradient plasticity theory and by use of an…
We study the dynamics of quasi-two-dimensional concentrated suspensions of colloidal particles in active gels by computer simulations. Remarkably, we find that activity induces a dynamic clustering of colloids even in the absence of any…
Self-assembly of colloidal particles due to elastic interactions in nematic liquid crystals promises tunable composite materials and can be guided by exploiting surface functionalization, geometric shape and topology, though these means of…
Active nematics are microscopically driven liquid crystals that exhibit dynamical steady states characterized by the creation and annihilation of topological defects. Motivated by experimental realizations of such systems made of biopolymer…