Related papers: Interaction of colloids with a nematic-isotropic i…
We present a large-scale molecular dynamics study of nematic-paranematic interfaces under shear. We use a model of soft repulsive ellipsoidal particles with well-known equilibrium properties, and consider interfaces which are oriented…
Within the macroscopic Landau-de Gennes approach, we examine the Gaussian normal mode fluctuations of semi-infinite nematic liquid crystals in a regime of critical wetting. It is argued that surface free-energy potentials that strongly…
The elastic interactions between objects embedded in a nematic liquid crystal are usually caused by the average distorsion-rather than by the fluctuations-of the nematic orientational field. We argue that for sufficiently small particles,…
We consider a Landau-de Gennes model for a suspension of small colloidal inclusions in a nematic host. We impose suitable anchoring conditions at the boundary of the inclusions, and we work in the dilute regime - i.e., the size of the…
We report the first clear demonstration of drag on colloidal particles by a moving nematic-isotropic interface. The balance of forces explains our observation of periodic, strip-like structures that are produced by the movement of these…
We study the gradient flow model for the Landau-de Gennes energy functional for nematic liquid crystals at the nematic-isotropic transition temperature on prototype geometries. We study the dynamic model on a three-dimensional droplet and…
We construct a phenomenological Landau-de Gennes theory for hard colloidal rods by performing an order parameter expansion of the chemical-potential dependent grand potential. By fitting the coefficients to known results of Onsager theory,…
Different computational techniques in combination with molecular dynamics computer simulation are used to to determine the wall-liquid and the wall-crystal interfacial free energies of a modified Lennard-Jones (LJ) system in contact with a…
We study colloidal particles in a nematic-liquid-crystal-filled microfluidic channel and show how elastic interactions between the particle and the channel wall lead to different particle dynamics compared with conventional microfluidics.…
Colloids dispersed in nematic liquid crystals form topological composites in which colloid-associated defects mediate interactions while adhering to fundamental topological constraints. Better realising the promise of such materials…
The isotropic-to-nematic transition in liquid crystals is studied in d=3 spatial dimensions. A simulation method is proposed to measure the angle dependent interfacial tension g(theta), with theta the anchoring angle of the nematic phase at…
We perform dynamical simulations of a two-dimensional active nematic fluid in coexistence with an isotropic fluid. Drops of active nematic become elongated, and an effective anchoring develops at the nematic-isotropic interface. The…
Interfacial properties of colloid--polymer mixtures are examined within an effective one--component representation, where the polymer degrees of freedom are traced out, leaving a fluid of colloidal particles interacting via polymer--induced…
We predict the structural interaction of crystalline solid-melt interfaces using amplitude equations which are derived from classical density functional theory or phase-field-crystal modeling. The solid ordering decays exponentially on the…
Molecules of a nematic liquid crystal respond to an applied magnetic field by reorienting themselves in the direction of the field. Since the dielectric anisotropy of a nematic is small, it takes relatively large fields to elicit a…
In this study, we carried out equilibrium molecular dynamics (EMD) simulations of the liquid-liquid interface between two different Lennard-Jones components with varying miscibility, where we examined the relation between the interfacial…
We demonstrate that a first order isotropic-to-nematic phase transition in liquid crystals can be succesfully modeled within the generalized Landau-de Gennes theory by selecting an appropriate combination of elastic constants. The numerical…
Within mean-field theory we determine the universal scaling function for the effective force acting on a single colloid located near the interface between two coexisting liquid phases of a binary liquid mixture close to its critical…
We explore the structure of nuclei and topological defects in the first-order phase transition between the nematic (N) and isotropic (I) phases in lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs). The LCLCs are formed by self-assembled molecular…
We analyze theoretically the electrostatic interaction of surface-charged colloids at water interfaces with special attention to the experimentally relevant case of large charge densities on the colloid-water interface. Whereas linear…