Related papers: Columnar versus smectic order in systems of charge…
The relation between elasticity and yielding is investigated in a model polymer solid by Molecular-Dynamics simulations. By changing the bending stiffness of the chain and the bond length, semicrystalline and disordered glassy polymers -…
We construct the complete liquid crystal phase diagram of hard plate-like cylinders for variable aspect ratio using Onsager's second virial theory with the Parsons-Lee decoupling approximation to account for higher-body interactions in the…
Concentrated colloidal suspensions of nanorods often exhibit liquid-crystalline (LC) behavior. The transition to a nematic LC phase, with long-range orientational order of the particles, is usually well captured by Onsager's theory for hard…
Two-dimensional nonequilibrium nematic steady states, as found in agitated granular-rod monolayers or films of orientable amoeboid cells, were predicted [Europhys. Lett. {\bf 62} (2003) 196] to have giant number fluctuations, with standard…
We present experimental measurements of the cholesteric-smectic phase transition of suspensions of charged semiflexible rods as a function of rod flexibility and surface charge. The rod particles consist of the bacteriophage M13 and closely…
Inspired by the observations of a remarkably stable biaxial nematic phase [E.v.d. Pol et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 258301 (2009)], we investigate the effect of size polydispersity on the phase behavior of a suspension of boardlike…
We theoretically study the phase behaviour of monolayers of hard rod-plate mixtures using a fundamental-measure density functional in the restricted-orientation (Zwanzig) approximation. We consider both species to be subject to an…
The equilibrium properties of hard rod monolayers are investigated in a lattice model (where position and orientation of a rod are restricted to discrete values) as well as in an off--lattice model featuring spherocylinders with continuous…
We report on the dynamics in colloidal suspensions of stiff viral rods, called fd-Y21M. This mutant filamentous virus exhibits a persistence length 3.5 times larger than the wild-type fd-wt. Such a virus system can be used as a model system…
Motivated by experiments in electroconvection in nematic liquid crystals with homeotropic alignment we study the coupled amplitude equations describing the formation of a stationary roll pattern in the presence of a weakly-damped mode that…
The surface phase behavior of binary mixtures of colloidal hard rods in contact with a solid substrate (hard wall) is studied, with special emphasis on the region of the phase diagram that includes the smectic A phase. The colloidal rods…
We perform a combined experimental and theoretical investigation of the orientational dynamics of rod-like colloidal particles in dilute suspension as they are subjected to a time-dependent homogeneous planar elongational flow. Our…
With the aim of investigating the stability conditions of biaxial nematic liquid crystals, we study the effect of adding a non-adsorbing ideal depletant on the phase behavior of colloidal hard boardlike particles. We take into account the…
We investigate experimentally the relationship between local structure and dynamical arrest in a quasi-2d colloidal model system which approximates hard discs. We introduce polydispersity to the system to suppress crystallisation. Upon…
Lamellar or smectic phases often have an intricate intralamellar structure that remains scarcely understood from a microscopic viewpoint. In this work, we use molecular dynamics simulations to study the effect of volume exclusion and…
Inspired by recent simulations on highly open liquid crystalline structures formed by rigid planar nanorings we present a simple theoretical framework explaining the prevalence of smectic over nematic ordering in systems of ring-shaped…
Nematic liquid crystals exhibit configurations in which the underlying ordering changes markedly on macroscopic length scales. Such structures include topological defects in the nematic phase and tactoids within nematic-isotropic…
Physical vapor deposition can be used to prepare highly stable organic glass systems where the molecules show orientational and translational ordering at the nanoscale. We have used low-dose four-dimensional scanning transmission electron…
We investigate the orientational order of transverse polarization vectors of long columns of nucleosomal core particles and their coupling to positional order in high density mesophases discovered recently. Inhomogeneous polar ordering of…
We assess the possibility of shear banding of semidilute rod-like colloidal suspensions under steady shear ow very close to the isotropic-nematic spinodal, using a combination of rheology, small angle neutron scattering, and laser Doppler…