Related papers: Entropy-induced smectic phases in rod-coil copolym…
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…
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…
The assembly of nanometer-sized building blocks into complex morphologies is not only of fundamental interest but also plays a key role in material science and nanotechnology. We show that the shape of self-assembled superstructures formed…
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…
Single molecular species can self-assemble into Frank Kasper (FK) phases, finite approximants of dodecagonal quasicrystals, defying intuitive notions that thermodynamic ground states are maximally symmetric. FK phases are speculated to…
Conformal field theories (CFTs) with a globally conserved U(1) charge Q can be deformed into compressible phases by modifying their Hamiltonian, H, by a chemical potential H -> H - \mu Q. We study 2+1 dimensional CFTs upon which an explicit…
We report the nematic and smectic ordering in a new aqueous suspension of monolayer $\alpha$-Zirconium phosphate platelets possessing a high polydispersity in diameter but uniform thickness. We observe an isotropic--nematic transition as…
The self-assembly behaviour of a diblock copolymer-diblock copolymer mixture under an oscillating shear field is investigated via cell dynamics simulation. The results indicate that the macrophase separation of the composite system is…
We present a generalized theory of microphase separation for charged-neutral diblock copolymer melt. Stability limit of the disordered phase for salt-free melt has been calculated using Random Phase Approximation (RPA) and self-consistent…
Smectic-C elastomers can be prepared by crosslinking, e.g., liquid crystal polymers, in the smectic-A phase followed by a cooling through the smectic-A to smectic-C phase transition. This transition from $D_{\infty h}$ to $C_{2h}$ symmetry…
Soft modulated phases have been shown to undergo complex morphological transitions, in which layer remodeling induced by mean and Gaussian curvatures plays a major role. This is the case in smectic films under thermal treatment, where focal…
We consider a system of particles interacting via a purely repulsive, soft-core potential recently introduced to model effective pair interactions between dendrimers, which is expected to lead to the formation of crystals with multiple…
We introduce a mesoscale method for simulating hydrodynamic transport and self assembly of inhomogeneous polymer melts in pressure driven and drag induced flows. This method extends dynamic self consistent field theory (DSCFT) into the…
We investigate the properties of a system of semi-diluted polymers in the presence of charged groups and counter-ions, by means of self-consistent field theory. We study a system of polyelectrolyte chains grafted to a similarly, as well as…
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…
We apply a recently proposed density functional for mixtures of parallel hard cylinders, based on Rosenfeld's fundamental measure theory, to study the effect of length-polydispersity on the relative stability between the smectic and…
Associative polymers are a class of polymers containing attractive stickers that can reversibly bind to each other. Their fully-bonded state gives rise, in dilute conditions, to a fluid phase of so-called single-chain nanoparticles (SCNPs).…
We employ the recently introduced generalized microcanonical inflection point method for the statistical analysis of phase transitions in flexible and semiflexible polymers and study the impact of the bending stiffness upon the character…
We study the kinetics of the isotropic-smectic phase transition in a colloidal rod/polymer mixture by visualizing individual smectic layers. First, we show that the bulk isotropic-smectic phase transition is preceded by a surface freezing…
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…