Related papers: Parity Breaking in Nematic Tactoids
We propose an approach toward understanding the spin glass phase at zero and low temperature by studying the stability of a spin glass ground state against perturbations of a single coupling. After reviewing the concepts of flexibility,…
We derive a F\"{o}ppl-von K\'{a}rm\'{a}n-type constitutive model for solid liquid crystalline plates where the nematic director may or may not rotate freely relative to the elastic network. To obtain the reduced two-dimensional model, we…
We investigate the dynamics of active nematic liquid crystals on deformable membranes, focusing on the interplay between active stress and anisotropic curvature coupling. Using a minimal model, we simulate the coupled evolution of the…
A nonlinear viscoelastic theory of nematodynamic type is developed for nematic liquid crystalline (LC) semi-flexible polymers. A measure of transient elastic strain due to the change in length of macromolecular strands under stress, and the…
Ground states of materials with orientational order ranging from solid ferromagnets and ferroelectrics to liquid crystals often contain spatially varying vector-like order parameter caused by inner factors such as the shape of building…
Topology can manifest itself in colloids when quantified by invariants like Euler characteristics of nonzero-genus colloidal surfaces, albeit spherical colloidal particles are most often studied, and colloidal particles with complex…
We describe a numerical investigation of a continuum model of an active nematic, concentrating on the regime of active turbulence. Results are presented for the effect of three parameters, activity, elastic constant and rotational diffusion…
In recent decades novel solid substrates have been designed which change their wettability in response to light or an electrostatic field. Here, we investigate a droplet on substrates with oscillating uniform wettability by varying minimium…
Engineering synthetic materials that mimic the remarkable complexity of living organisms is a fundamental challenge in science and technology. We study the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge when an active nematicfilm of microtubules and…
Here we study theoretically the dynamics of a 2D and a 3D isotropic droplet in a nematic liquid crystal under a shear flow. We find a large repertoire of possible nonequilibrium steady states as a function of the shear rate and of the…
We introduce a new experimental approach to study the structural transitions of large numbers of nanoparticle-coated droplets as their volume is reduced. We use an emulsion system where the dispersed phase is slightly soluble in the…
Liquid crystal droplets are of great interest from physics and applications. Rigorous mathematical analysis is challenging as the problem involves harmonic maps (and in general the Oseen-Frank model), free interfaces and topological defects…
Instabilities of fluid-fluid interfaces are ubiquitous in passive soft matter. Adding activity to the interface or either fluid can dramatically change the stability of the interface. Using experiment and theory, we investigate the…
We investigate the dynamical pathways of a geometric phase transition in a two-dimensional active lattice gas undergoing motility-induced phase separation. The transition is between metastable morphologies of the liquid cluster: a…
The Cassie-Baxter state droplet has many local energy minima on the textured surface, while the amount of the energy barrier between them can be affected by the gravity. When the droplet cannot find any local energy minimum point on the…
We study dynamical processes in a multi-domain (MD) structured nematic liquid crystal cell with a particular emphasis on the motion, creation and annihilation of disclinations. In the MD cell right- and left-handed director helices…
Topological defects are distinctive signatures of liquid crystals. They profoundly affect the viscoelastic behavior of the fluid by constraining the orientational structure in a way that inevitably requires global changes not achievable…
We use lattice Boltzmann simulations of the Beris--Edwards formulation of nematodynamics to probe the response of a nematic liquid crystal with conflicting anchoring at the boundaries under shear and Poiseuille flow. The geometry we focus…
When a nematic liquid crystal (LC) is confined on a self-closing spherical shell, topological constraints arise with intriguing consequences that depend critically on how the LC is aligned in the shell. We demonstrate reversible dynamic…
The symmetry breaking Freedericksz transitions, when a uniformly aligned nematic state is replaced by a homogeneously or periodically distorted state, have been extensively studied before. Here we analyse the influence of the saddle-splay…