Related papers: Short pitch structures in smectics with interactio…
A phenomenological free energy model is proposed to describe the behavior of smectic liquid crystals, an intermediate phase that exhibits orientational order and layering at the molecular scale. Advantageous properties render the functional…
Recently, a new class of smectic liquid crystal phases (SmCP phases) characterized by the spontaneous formation of macroscopic chiral domains from achiral bent-core molecules has been discovered. We have carried out Monte Carlo simulations…
The discovery of fluid states of matter with spontaneous bulk polar order is appreciated as a major discovery in the fields of soft matter and liquid crystals. Typically, this manifests as polar order superimposed atop conventional phase…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking and emergent polar order are each of fundamental importance to a range of scientific disciplines, as well as generating rich phase behaviour in liquid crystals (LCs). Here, we show the union of these phenomena…
Non-chiral liquid crystals (LCs) exhibiting ferroelectricity, distinguished by their dynamic responsiveness to external stimuli and high spontaneous polarization, provide renewed impetus for research into this area of soft matter and open…
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…
We report the effect of AC electric fields in the range of 0.1-300 kHz on planar antiferroelectric SmZA layers of DIO. Significant results are (a) primary bifurcation into a quasistationary periodic instability with its voltage threshold Uc…
The smectic C (smC) phase represents a unique class of liquid crystal phases characterised by the layered arrangement of molecules with tilted orientations with respect to layer normals. Building upon the real-valued tensorial smectic A…
We demonstrate that the sequence of distorted commensurate phases observed in tilted chiral smectics is explained by the gain in electrostatic energy due to the lock-in of the unit cell to a number of layers which is the integer closest to…
Recent liquid-crystalline (LC) research is focused on structurally new molecular systems distinct from simple nematic or smectic phases. Sophisticated molecular shape may reveal structural complexity, combining helicity and polarity.…
Chiral smectic liquid crystals exhibit a series of phases, including ferroelectric, antiferroelectric and ferrielectric commensurate structures as well as an incommensurate SmCalpha phase. We carried out an extension of the phenomenological…
My model, it has three layers, Three layers is nematic. And had it just two layers, it would be a smectic. We study a reduced model of the smectic transition in two dimensions where the particles occupy three equally spaced layers. The role…
We present a model for smectic elastomer membranes which includes elastic and liquid crystalline degrees of freedom. Based on our model, we determined the qualitative phase diagram of a smectic elastomer membrane using mean-field theory.…
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…
We present a theory of the elasticity and fluctuations of the Smectic A and C phases in uniaxial, anisotropic disordered environments, e.g., stretched aerogel. We find that, bizarrely, the low-temperature, lower-symmetry Smectic $C$ phase…
Chiral magnets with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions feature a rich phase diagram with a variety of thermodynamical phases. These include helical and conical spin arrangements and topologically charged objects such as (anti)skyrmions.…
In soft matter, the polar orientational order of molecules can facilitate the coexistence of structural chirality and ferroelectricity. The ferroelectric nematic (NF) state, exhibited by achiral calamitic molecules with large dipole…
Recently we have formulated theory of bi-layer-dimerized chiral liquid antiferroelectric crystals. The spontaneous polarization has been increased owing to the strong interaction of the aromatic cores of the rod like liquid crystal…
Telephone-cord patterns have been recently observed in smectic liquid crystal capillaries. In this paper we analyse the effects that may induce them. As long as the capillary keeps its linear shape, we show that a nonzero chiral cholesteric…
The row model for frustrated XY spins on a triangular lattice in 2D is used to study incommensurate{IC}) spiral and commensurate{C} antiferromagnetic (AF) phases, in the regime where a C-IC transition occurs. Using fluctuating boundary…