Related papers: Dynamics of smectic elastomers
Motivated by the experimentally observed shear-induced destabilization and reorientation of smectic A like systems, we consider an extended formulation of smectic A hydrodynamics. We include both, the smectic layering (via the layer…
Stability is an important and fruitful avenue of research for liquid crystal elastomers. At constant temperature, upon stretching, the homogeneous state of a nematic body becomes unstable, and alternating shear stripes develop at very low…
We study the smectic $A$-$C$ phase transition in biaxial disordered environments, e.g. fully anisotropic aerogel. We find that both the $A$ and $C$ phases belong to the universality class of the "XY Bragg glass", and therefore have…
We introduce a nonlinear, one-dimensional bending-twisting model for an inextensible bi-rod that is composed of a nematic liquid crystal elastomer. The model combines an elastic energy that is quadratic in curvature and torsion with a…
We examine the scaling with activity of the emergent length scales that control the nonequilibrium dynamics of an active nematic liquid crystal, using two popular hydrodynamic models that have been employed in previous studies. In both…
We present an experimental study of the flow dynamics of a lamellar phase sheared in the Couette geometry. High-frequency ultrasonic pulses at 36 MHz are used to measure time-resolved velocity profiles. Oscillations of the viscosity occur…
We present theoretical study of a single disclination motion in a thin free standing hexatic (or smectic-C) film, driven by a large-scale inhomogeneity in the bond (or director) angle. Back-flow effects and own dynamics of the bond angle…
We aimed to use finite element method to simulate the unique behaviors of liquid crystal elastomer, such as semi-soft elasticity, stripe domain instabilities etc. We started from an energy functional with the 2D Bladon-Warner-Terentjev…
In this paper we are interested in the Landau-de Gennes functional introduced to study the transition between the smectic and nematic phases of a liquid crystal. We define a reduced functional by constraining the director field to satisfy a…
Using Monte Carlo simulation methods, we explore the role of molecular shape in the phase behavior of liquid crystals and the electroclinic effect. We study a "bent-rod" mesogen shaped like the letter Z, composed of seven soft spheres…
We have written expressions for the free energy of a cholesteric liquid crystal in an approximation using the elasticity constants K_1, K_2, K_3 and the energy variation and the corresponding energy and energy gradient along the direction…
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…
Electro-hydrodynamic phenomena in liquid crystals constitute an old but still very active research area. The reason is that these phenomena play the key role in various applications of liquid crystals and due to the general interest of…
Modeling liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) at the molecular level is crucial for the predictable design of energy-conversion and stimuli-responsive materials. Here, we develop a self-consistent field theory for LCEs which captures the…
In our previous study, we demonstrated the existence of an unidentified ferroelectric smectic phase in the low-temperature region of the ferroelectric smectic A phase, where the layer spacing decreases with decreasing temperature. In the…
Slow dynamics of difluorotetrachloroethane in both supercooled plastic crystal and supercooled liquid states have been investigated from Molecular Dynamics simulations. The temperature and wave-vector dependence of collective dynamics in…
We report hybrid lattice Boltzmann (HLB) simulations of the hydrodynamics of an active nematic liquid crystal sandwiched between confining walls with various anchoring conditions. We confirm the existence of a transition between a passive…
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…
Recent experiments and numerical studies have drawn attention to the dynamics of active nematics. Two-dimensional active nematics flow spontaneously and exhibit spatiotemporal chaotic flows with proliferation of topological defects in the…
Liquid crystal elastomers are cross-linked elastomer networks with liquid crystal mesogens incorporated into the main or side chain. Polydomain liquid crystalline (nematic) elastomers exhibit unusual mechanical properties like soft…