We study living liquid crystals (LLCs), which are an amalgam of nematic liquid crystals (LCs) and active matter (AM). These LLCs are placed in contact with surfaces which impose planar/homeotropic boundary conditions on the director field of the LC and the polarization field of the AM. The interplay of LC-AM interactions and the surface-directed conditions yield controlled pattern dynamics in the LLC, which has important technological implications. We discuss two representative examples of this pattern dynamics.
@article{arxiv.2401.05858,
title = {Surface-directed Dynamics in Living Liquid Crystals},
author = {Aditya Vats and Varsha Banerjee and Sanjay Puri},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.05858},
year = {2024}
}