Related papers: Dipolar interactions, molecular flexibility, and f…
The dynamics of active smectic liquid crystals confined on a spherical surface is explored through an active phase field crystal model. Starting from an initially randomly perturbed isotropic phase, several types of topological defects are…
The effects of particle roughness and short-ranged non-central forces on colloidal gels are studied using computer simulations in which particles experience a sinusoidal variation in energy as they rotate. The number of minima $n$ and…
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 describe electrophoresis of spherical dielectric particles in a uniformly aligned nematic medium with a negative dielectric anisotropy. A spherical particle that orients the liquid crystal (LC) perpendicularly to its surface moves under…
The origin of recently observed spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in polar fluids is an unsolved problem, and poses fundamental questions as to how heliconical structures emerge in systems composed of achiral molecules. We report on the…
We propose a novel computational strategy to study the glass transition of molecular fluids. Our approach combines the construction of simple yet realistic models with the development of Monte Carlo algorithms to accelerate equilibration…
A Self Consistent Field Theory description of equilibrium, but non uniform, configurations adopted by semi flexible liquid crystal molecules is presented. Two cases are considered, isotropic-nematic phase boundaries, and topological defects…
Molecular dynamics simulations are carried out to investigate the diffusion behavior of penetrable-sphere model fluids characterized by a finite energy barrier $\epsilon$. The self-diffusion coefficient is evaluated from the time-dependent…
Self-propulsion and navigation due to the sensing of environmental conditions - such as durotaxis and chemotaxis - are remarkable properties of biological cells that cannot be reproduced by single-component self-propelled particles. We…
We report the smectic $A_F$, a new liquid crystal phase of the ferroelectric nematic realm. The smectic $A_F$ is a phase of small polar, rod-shaped molecules which form two-dimensional fluid layers spaced by approximately the mean molecular…
Molecular dynamics simulations are performed to study the [100] and [111] orientations of the crystal-melt interface between an ordered two-component hard sphere with a NaCl structure and its coexisting binary hard-sphere fluid. The…
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),…
In the review we briefly analyze the state-of-art in the theory of flexoelectric phenomena and analyze how significantly the flexoelectric coupling can change the polar order parameter distribution in different ferroics and liquid crystals.…
Particles added to a fluid interface can be used as a surface stabilizer in the food, oil and cosmetic industries. As an alternative to rigid particles, it is promising to consider highly deformable particles that can adapt their…
We use discontinuous molecular dynamics and grand-canonical transition-matrix Monte Carlo simulations to explore how confinement between parallel hard walls modifies the relationships between packing fraction, self-diffusivity, partial…
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…
Over the last decade, an increasing body of evidence has emerged, supporting the existence of a metastable liquid-liquid critical point in supercooled water, whereby two distinct liquid phases of different densities coexist. Analysing long…
We investigate the crystal structure of classical systems of spherical particles with an embedded point dipole at T=0. The ferroelectric ground state energy is calculated using generalizations of the Ewald summation technique. Due to the…
A hybrid mesoscopic multi-particle collision model is used to study diffusion-influenced reaction kinetics. The mesoscopic particle dynamics conserves mass, momentum and energy so that hydrodynamic effects are fully taken into account.…
We introduce a novel coarse-grained bead-spring model for flexible polymers to systematically examine the effects of an adjusted bonded potential on the formation and stability of structural macrostates in a thermal environment. The density…