Related papers: Phase Behavior of Bent-Core Molecules
Following the groundbreaking discovery of the ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal phase (NF), a series of closely-related new polar phases have also been found. An especially interesting one is the ferroelectric smectic A phase (SmAF) with…
The rich mesophase polymorhism and the phase sequence of board-like colloids depends critically on their shape anisometry. Implementing extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we calculated the full phase diagram of sterically interacting…
We have used Monte Carlo NPT computer simulations to study a system of spherical fan shaped particles made of three hard discs fused along a common diameter. The calculated equation of state indicates a strong, entropy driven, first order…
The surface phase behavior of binary mixtures of colloidal hard rods in contact with a solid substrate (hard wall) is studied, with special emphasis on the region of the phase diagram that includes the smectic A phase. The colloidal rods…
This research focuses on the unique phase behavior of non-spherical patchy colloids in porous environments. Based on the theory of scaled particle (SPT), methods have been refined and applied to analyze the thermodynamic properties of…
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…
We propose a continuum tensorial model for chiral smectic C (SmC$^*$) liquid crystals using a tensor-valued order parameter $\mathbf{Q}$ to describe orientational order and a real-valued order parameter $\delta\rho$ to capture layer…
Recent experimental discoveries of novel nematic types with polar order, including ferroelectric nematic and splay nematic have brought the resurgence of the interest in polar and modulated phases. One of the most important factors that is…
We report the experimental investigations on a liquid crystal comprised of thiophene-based achiral bent-core banana shaped molecules. The results reveal the presence of a short range nematic phase at high temperatures and a long-range SmA…
Under an electric field, chiral smectic liquid crystals transit usually to the unwound SmC* phase where the helical structure is completely unrolled. Sometimes the sample transits initially towards an intermediate polar state before the…
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…
Ferroelectric nematic (NF) phase and related polar liquid-crystalline phases form a new class of strongly polarized yet fluid soft matter. Well-recognized heliconical ferroelectric phases such as NTBF and SmC_P^H exist, but their…
We have calculated the phase diagrams of one--component fluids made of five types of biaxial particles differing in their cross sections. The orientation of the principal particle axis is fixed in space, while the second axis is allowed to…
A material showing a sequence of three ferroelectric liquid crystalline phases below the paraelectric nematic phase has been synthesized and studied. The polar order of molecules appearing due to the dipole-dipole interactions in the NF…
Recent experiments have found a bent-core liquid crystal in which the layer chirality alternates from layer to layer, giving a racemic or "antichiral" material, even though the molecules are uniformly chiral. To explain this effect, we map…
We present a simplified molecular model of mesogenic dimers consisting of two identical uniaxial mesogenic cores separated by a fixed-length spacer and allowed to assume only two, statistically equivalent, conformations which are non-planar…
A series of asymmetric dimers with an odd number of atoms in the spacer were found to form different types of twisted structures despite being achiral. The formation of a variety of helical structures is accompanied by a gradual freezing of…
Experimental and modeling/simulation studies of phase equilibrium and growth morphologies of novel polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) mixtures of PS (polystyrene) and liquid crystals that exhibit a direct isotropic/smectic-A (lamellar)…
Recent numerical simulations of hard helical particle systems unveiled the existence of a novel chiral nematic phase, termed screw-like, characterised by the helical organization of the particle C$_2$ symmetry axes round the nematic…
Semiflexible polymers in concentrated lyotropic solution are studied within a bead-spring model by molecular dynamics simulations, focusing on the emergence of a smectic A phase and its properties. We systematically vary the density of the…