相关论文: Shaping thin nematic films with competing boundary…
We report the results of Monte Carlo simulations of the Lebwohl--Lasher model of nematic liquid crystals confined to cylindrical cavities with homeotropic anchoring. We show that the ratio of the bulk to surface couplings is not in general…
Disclinations lines play a key role in many physical processes, from the fracture of materials to the formation of the early universe. Achieving versatile control over disclinations is key to developing novel electro-optical devices,…
A two-dimensional or quasi-two-dimensional nematic liquid crystal refers to a surface confined system. When such a system is further confined by external line boundaries or excluded from internal line boundaries, the nematic directors form…
Computer simulations are presented of the isotropic-to-nematic transition in a liquid crystal confined between two parallel plates a distance H apart. The plates are neutral and do not impose any anchoring on the particles. Depending on the…
A confined incompressible elastic film does not deform uniformly when subjected to adhesive interfacial stresses but with undulations which have a characteristic wavelength scaling linearly with the thickness of the film. In the classical…
Functionalized thin elastic films and membranes frequently feature internal sites of net forces or stresses. These are, for instance, active sites of actuation, or rigid inclusions in a strained membrane that induce counterstress upon…
The axisymmetric flow of a thin liquid film is considered for the problem of a vertically rotating disk that is partially immersed in a liquid bath. A model for the fully three-dimensional free-boundary problem of the rotating disk, that…
It is shown how the combination of atomic deposition and nonlinear diffusion may lead, below a critical temperature, to the growth of nonuniform layers on a substrate. The dynamics of such a system is of the Cahn-Hilliard type, supplemented…
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…
When a suspension dries, the suspending fluid evaporates, leaving behind a dry film composed of the suspended particles. During the final stages of drying, the height of the fluid film on the substrate drops below the particle size,…
The use of thin liquid films has expanded beyond lubrication and coatings, and into applications in actuators and adaptive optical elements. In contrast to their predecessors, whose dynamics can be typically captured by modelling infinite…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into directional motion, giving rise to striking dynamical phenomena. Developing a general understanding of their structure in relation to the underlying non-equilibrium physics would…
In vivo and in vitro systems of cells and extra-cellular matrix (ECM) systems are well known to form ordered patterns of orientationally aligned fibers. Here, we interpret them as active analogs of the (disordered) isotropic to the…
Uniaxial nematic liquid crystals whose molecular orientation is subjected to a tangential anchoring on a curved surface offer a non trivial interplay between the geometry and the topology of the surface and the orientational degree of…
Using the classical density functional theory of freezing and Monte Carlo computer simulations, we explore the liquid-crystalline phase behavior of hard rectangles on flat and cylindrical manifolds. Moreover, we study the effect of a static…
Standard approaches to magneto-mechanical interactions in thermal magnetic crystalline solids involve Landau functionals in which the lattice anisotropy and the resulting magnetization easy axes are taken explicitly into account. In glassy…
Building on the striking similarity between the structure of the spindle during mitosis in living cells and nematic textures in confined liquid crystals, we use a continuum model of two-dimensional nematic liquid crystal droplets, to…
In a nematic gel, the appearance of nematic order is accompanied by a spontaneous elongation of the gel parallel to the nematic director. If such a gel is made chiral, it has a tendency to form a cholesteric helical texture, in which local…
This review article examines the complex dynamics of thin-film flows of granular suspensions spreading over rigid solid substrates with free air interfaces. Such systems feature an involved coupling of the free-surface dynamics with the…
The effect of confining walls on the fluctuation of a nanoscale thin film's free surface is studied using stochastic thin-film equations (STFEs). Two canonical boundary conditions are employed to reveal the influence of the confinement: (1)…