Related papers: Polar Molecular Organisation in Liquid Crystals
Understanding nanoscale mechanisms responsible for the recently discovered ferroelectric nematics can be helped by direct visualization of self-assembly of strongly polar molecules. Here we report on scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)…
We show that development of polar order may spontaneously destroy the lamellar structure of a liquid crystal. This results in an unusual sequence of phases with the ferroelectric nematic phase appearing below a non-polar smectic phase. The…
So-called polar liquid crystals possess spontaneous long-range mutual orientation of their electric dipole moments, conferring bulk polarity to fluid phases of matter. The combination of polarity and fluidity leads to complex phase…
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…
General microscopic mechanism of ferroelectric ordering in chiral smectic C* liquid crystals is considered. It is shown that if the mesogenic molecules have a sufficiently low symmetry, the spontaneous polarization is proportional to one of…
The ability to manipulate polar entities with multiple external fields opens exciting possibilities for emerging functionalities and novel applications in spin systems, photonics, metamaterials, and soft matter. Liquid crystals (LCs),…
How epithelial cells coordinate their polarity to form functional tissues is an open question in cell biology. Here, we characterize a unique type of polarity found in liver tissue, nematic cell polarity, which is different from vectorial…
Topological spin and polar textures have fascinated people in different areas of physics and technologies. However, the observations are limited in magnetic and solid-state ferroelectric systems. Ferroelectric nematic is the first…
Nematic liquid crystals have been known for more than a century, but it was not until the 60s-70s that, with the development of room temperature nematics, they became widely used in applications. Polar nematic phases have been long-time…
Polar solitons, i.e., solitonic waves accompanying asymmetry of geometry or phase, have garnered attention in polar systems, such as ferroelectric or magnetoelectric materials, where they play a critical role in topological transitions and…
Ferroelectric nematic phases are a new class of polar fluids in which spontaneous polarization is directly coupled to the orientational order, providing unique opportunities for creating self-organized materils with spatially modulated…
Starting from a microscopic definition of an alignment vector proportional to the polarization, we discuss the hydrodynamics of polar liquid crystals with local $C_{\infty v}$-symmetry. The free energy for polar liquid crystals differs from…
Polar nematic liquid crystals are new classes of condensed-matter states where the inversion symmetry common to the traditional apolar nematics is broken. Establishing theoretical descriptions for the novel phase states is an urgent task.…
A significant effort in condensed matter physics is dedicated to the search for exotic arrangements of electric dipoles in crystals. Non-collinear dipolar arrangements mimicking magnetic spin textures, such as polar vortices and skyrmions,…
Liquid crystal materials exhibiting up to three nematic phases are reported. Dielectric response measurements show that while the lower temperature nematic phase has ferroelectric order and the highest temperature nematic phase is apolar,…
We explore the phase behavior and structure of orthogonal smectic liquid crystals consisting of bent-core molecules (BCMs) by means of Monte Carlo molecular simulations. A simple athermal molecular model is introduced that describes the…
Two-dimensional polar liquid crystals have been discovered recently in monolayers of anisotropic molecules. Here, we provide a systematic theoretical description of liquid-crystalline phases for polar particles in two spatial dimensions.…
In culture migrating and interacting amoeboid cells can form nematic liquid crystal phases. A polar nematic liquid crystal is formed if the interaction has a polar symmetry. One type of white blood cells (granulocytes) form clusters where…
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…
Ferroelectric nematic (NF) liquid crystals combine liquid-like fluidity and orientational order of conventional nematics with macroscopic electric polarization comparable in magnitude to solid state ferroelectric materials. Here, we present…