Related papers: On elliptical soft colloids in smectic-C films
Dispersed colloidal particles within a suspension can aggregate and spontaneously self-organize into a robust, percolating structure known as a gel. These network-like structures are prevalent in nature and play a critical role in many…
We study elastic properties of solid Yukawa systems. Elastic moduli and effective shear modulus of body-centered cubic (bcc) and face-centered cubic (fcc) lattices are obtained from electrostatic energies of deformed crystals. For the bcc…
Phase equilibria between regions of different thickness in thin liquid films stabilized by colloidal particles are investigated using a quasi-two-dimensional thermodynamic formalism. Appropriate equilibrium conditions for the film tension,…
We study the phase ordering colloids suspended in a thermotropic nematic liquid crystal below the clearing point Tni and the resulting aggregated structure. Small (150nm) PMMA particles are dispersed in a classical liquid crystal matrix,…
It has been experimentally observed that weakly conducting suspended films of smectic liquid crystals undergo electroconvection when subjected to a large enough potential difference. The resulting counter-rotating vortices form a very…
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),…
We present spatially-resolved two-dimensional maps and radial trends of the stellar populations and kinematics for a sample of six compact elliptical galaxies (cE) using spectroscopy from the Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI). We recover their…
We explore the influence of particle shape on the behavior of evaporating drops. A first set of experiments discovered that particle shape modifies particle deposition after drying. For sessile drops, spheres are deposited in a ring-like…
Due to elastic anisotropy, two-dimensional patterning of substrates can promote weak azimuthal alignment of adjacent nematic liquid crystals. Here, we consider how such alignment can be achieved using a periodic square lattice of circular…
We analytically derive the effective layer elastic energy of smectic-A and smectic-C liquid crystals by adiabatic elimination of the orientational degree of freedom from the generalized Chen-Lubensky model. In the smectic-A phase, 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…
We present a computer simulation study of the crystalline phases of hard ellipsoids of revolution. A previous study [Phys. Rev. E, \textbf{75}, 020402 (2007)] showed that for aspect ratios $a/b\ge 3$ the previously suggested stretched-fcc…
Recent theories predict that when a supercooled liquid approaches the glass transition, particle clusters with a special "amorphous order" nucleate within the liquid, which lead to static correlations dictating the dramatic slowdown of…
Colloidal particles dispersed in a liquid crystal lead to distortions of the director field. The distortions are responsible for long-range effective colloidal interactions whose asymptotic behaviour is well understood. The short distance…
Freely suspended films of smectic liquid crystals are unique examples of quasi two-dimensional fluids. Mechanically stable and with quantized thickness of the order of only a few molecular layers, smectic films are ideal systems for…
We consider the shape of crystals which are soft in the sense that their elastic modulus $\mu$ is small compared to their surface tension $\gamma$, more precisely $ \mu a < \gamma$ where $a$ is the lattice spacing. We show that their…
Smectic liquid crystals are charcterized by layers that have a preferred uniform spacing and vanishing curvature in their ground state. Dislocations in the smectics play an important role in phase nucleation, layer reorientation, and…
After a brief introduction to several variational problems in the study of shapes of thin thickness structures, we deal with variational problems on 2-dimensional surface in 3-dimensional Euclidian space by using exterior differential…
Using self-consistent field and density-functional theories, we first investigate colloidal self-assembling of colloid/polymer films confined between two soft surfaces grafted by polymers. With the increase of colloidal concentrations, the…
We exploit the controlled drying of millimeter-sized gel beads to investigate isotropic compression of colloidal fractal gels. Using a custom dynamic light scattering setup, we demonstrate that stresses imposed by drying on the bead surface…