Related papers: Disclination Asymmetry in Two-Dimensional Nematic …
The ground state of chromonic liquid crystals, as revealed by a number of recent experiments, is quite different from that of ordinary nematic liquid crystals: it is twisted instead of uniform. The common explanation provided for this state…
The topology and the geometry of a surface play a fundamental role in determining the equilibrium configurations of thin films of liquid crystals. We propose here a theoretical analysis of a recently introduced surface Frank energy, in the…
We investigate the structure of nematic liquid crystal thin films described by the Landau--de Gennes tensor-valued order parameter with Dirichlet boundary conditions of nonzero degree. We prove that as the elasticity constant goes to zero a…
A singular potential method in the Q tensor order parameter representation of a nematic liquid crystal is used to study the equilibrium configuration of a disclination dipole. Unlike the well studied isotropic limit (the so called one…
Disclination configurations of a nematic liquid crystal are studied within a self-consistent molecular field theory. The theory is based on a tensor order parameter, and can accommodate anisotropic elastic energies without the known…
Ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals are polar fluids characterized by microscopic orientational ordering and macroscopic spontaneous polarizations. Within these fluids, walls that separate domains of different polarizations are…
Using Landau-de Gennes effective theory for nematic liquid crystals we analyse the structure of rectilinear n=1/2 smooth disclination line in the case of equal elastic constants. We find that at certain temperature there is an exact…
The equilibrium texture of nematic shells is studied as a function of their thickness. For ultrathin shells the ground state has four short 1/2 disclination lines but, as the thickness of the film increases, a three dimensional escaped…
Linear defects such as dislocations and disclinations in ordered materials attract foreign particles since they replace strong elastic distortions at the defect cores. In this work, we explore the behavior of isotropic droplets nucleating…
We consider a mathematical model that describes the flow of a Nematic Liquid Crystal (NLC) film placed on a flat substrate, across which a spatially-varying electric potential is applied. Due to their polar nature, NLC molecules interact…
Motivated by problems arising in tear film dynamics, we present a model for the extensional flow of thin sheets of nematic liquid crystal. The rod-like molecules of these substances impart an elastic contribution to its response. We rescale…
Defects in liquid crystals are of great practical importance and theoretical interest. Despite tremendous efforts, predicting the location and transition of defects under various topological constraint and external field remains to be a…
Nonsingular disclination dynamics in a uniaxial nematic liquid crystal is modeled within a mathematical framework where the kinematics is a direct extension of the classical way of identifying these line defects with singularities of a unit…
We show, using molecular dynamics simulations, that a two-dimensional Lennard-Jones solid is subject to droplet fluctuations characterized by {\em non-affine} deviations from local crystallinity. The fraction of particles in these droplets…
An exact kinematic law for the motion of disclination lines in nematic liquid crystals as a function of the tensor order parameter $\mathbf{Q}$ is derived. Unlike other order parameter fields that become singular at their respective defect…
We discuss instabilities of fluid films of nanoscale thickness, with a particular focus on films where the destabilising mechanism allows for linear instability, metastability, and absolute stability. Our study is motivated by nematic…
We investigate the emergence of orientational order among +1/2 disclinations in active nematic liquid crystals. Using a combination of theoretical and experimental methods, we show that +1/2 disclinations have short-range antiferromagnetic…
Motivated by recent experimental observations [U. Delabre et al, Langmuir 24, 3998, 2008] we reconsider an instability of ultrathin nematic films, spread on liquid substrates. Within a continuum elastic theory of liquid crystals, in the…
We investigate theoretically and experimentally the optical beam propagation in the nematic liquid crystal with negative dielectric anisotropy, which is aligned homeotropically in a $80\mu m$-thickness planar cell in the presence of an…
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…