Related papers: Interaction of colloids with a nematic-isotropic i…
We analyze the interplay between wetting and anchoring of nematic liquid crystals on disordering, e.g., rough substrates in the framework of the Landau-de Gennes theory, in situations of competing homeotropic and planar easy axes on the…
We investigate the asymptotic behaviour of a correlation function associated with a nematic liquid crystal system undergoing an isotropic-nematic phase transition following an instantaneous change of temperature. Within the setting of…
We analyze the effective potential for nanoparticles trapped at a fluid interface within a simple model which incorporates surface and line tensions as well as a thermal average over interface fluctuations (capillary waves). For a single…
The general form of the electrostatic potential around an arbitrarily charged colloid at an interface between a dielectric and a screening phase (such as air and water, respectively) is analyzed in terms of a multipole expansion. The…
Substrates which are chemically or topographically patterned induce a variety of liquid crystal textures. The response of the liquid crystal to competing surface orientations, typical of patterned substrates, is determined by the anisotropy…
The influence of the external pressure and surface energy on the wetting transition at nanotextured interfaces is studied using molecular dynamics and continuum simulations. The surface roughness of the composite interface is introduced via…
Since the early observation of nematic phases of disc-like clay colloids by Langmuir in 1938, the phase behaviour of such systems has resisted theoretical understanding. The main reason is that there is no satisfactory generalization for…
The influence of a fluid-fluid interface on self-phoresis of chemically active, axially symmetric, spherical colloids is analyzed. Distinct from the studies of self-phoresis for colloids trapped at fluid interfaces or in the vicinity of…
Within the framework of a discrete Gaussian model, we present analytical results for the interaction induced by a lamellar phase between small embedded colloids. We consider the two limits of particles strongly adherent to the adjacent…
We introduce a density-functional formalism based on the Parsons-Lee and the generalized van der Waals theories in order to describe the thermodynamics of anisotropic particle systems with steric interactions. For ellipsoids of revolution,…
The isotropic to nematic transition in a system of soft spherocylinders is studied by means of grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations. The probability distribution of the particle density is used to determine the coexistence density of the…
We use a two-dimensional (2D) elastic free energy to calculate the effective interaction between two circular disks immersed in smectic-$C$ films. For strong homeotropic anchoring, the distortion of the director field caused by the disks…
We report filling-fraction dependent dielectric spectroscopy measurements on the relaxation dynamics of the rod-like nematogen 7CB condensed in 13 nm silica nanochannels. In the film-condensed regime, a slow interface relaxation dominates…
Excess contributions to the free energy due to interfaces occur for many problems encountered in the statistical physics of condensed matter when coexistence between different phases is possible (e.g. wetting phenomena, nucleation, crystal…
We investigate the conformation, position, and dynamics of core-shell nanoparticles (CSNPs) composed of a silica core encapsulated in a cross-linked poly-N-isopropylacrylamide shell at a water-oil interface for a systematic range of core…
We investigate effective interactions between a colloidal particle, immersed in a binary mixture of smaller spheres, and a semipermeable membrane. The colloid is modeled as a big hard sphere and the membrane is represented as an infinitely…
The contact line (CL) is where solid, liquid and vapor phases meet, and Young's equation describes the macroscopic force balance of the interfacial tensions between these three phases. These interfacial tensions are related to the nanoscale…
This work investigates the wetting dynamics of cryogenic fluids in inertia-dominated conditions. We experimentally characterized an oscillating gas-liquid interface of liquid nitrogen in a partially filled U-shaped quartz tube. The…
Self-assembly of colloidal particles due to elastic interactions in nematic liquid crystals promises tunable composite materials and can be guided by exploiting surface functionalization, geometric shape and topology, though these means of…
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…