相关论文: Entropy-driven formation of prolate and oblate cho…
Building a general theoretical framework to describe the microscopic origin of macroscopic chirality in (colloidal) liquid crystals is a long-standing challenge. Here, we combine classical density functional theory with Monte Carlo…
Colloidal crystal structures with complexity and diversity rivaling atomic and molecular crystals have been predicted and obtained for hard particles by entropy maximization. However, so far homochiral colloidal crystals, which are…
We have investigated the relationship between the morphology of helical particles and the features of the cholesteric (N$^\ast $) phase that they form. Using an Onsager-like theory, applied to systems of hard helices, we show that the…
Entropy alone can self-assemble hard particles into colloidal crystals of remarkable complexity whose structures are the same as atomic and molecular crystals, but with larger lattice spacings. Although particle-based molecular simulation…
Using molecular simulations and classical density functional theory, we study the liquid-crystalline phase behaviour of a series of bent rod-like mesogens with a controlled degree of chirality introduced through a twist at the centre of the…
We investigate the phase behavior of a system of hard equilateral and right-angled triangles in two dimensions using Monte Carlo simulations. Hard equilateral triangles undergo a continuous isotropic-triatic liquid crystal phase transition…
Hard convex polyhedra, idealized models for anisotropic colloids and nanoparticles, are known to form variety of orientational phases despite the regular arrangement of particles in the crystalline assemblies. Based on the orientational…
Cholesteric liquid crystals can exhibit spatial patterns in molecular alignment at interfaces that can be exploited for particle assembly. These patterns emerge from the competition between bulk and surface energies, tunable with the system…
We report a computer simulation study on the effect of molecular structural biaxiality in the phase formation of chiral molecules. In this study, we have done coarse-grained modeling to observe self-assembled phase behavior. In our…
Chirality is a recurrent theme in the study of biological systems, in which active processes are driven by the internal conversion of chemical energy into work. Bacterial flagella, acto-myosin filaments and microtubule bundles are active…
We theoretically investigate the pitch of lyotropic cholesteric phases composed of slender rods with steric chirality transmitted via a weak helical deformation of the backbone. In this limit, the model is amenable to analytical treatment…
For the first time, we carry out molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of shear-induced martensitic phase transitions between the orthorhombic and non-orthorhombic (triclinic and monoclinic) phases of crystalline polyethylene (PE) in the…
We consider a theoretical model for a binary mixture of colloidal particles and spherical emulsion droplets. The hard sphere colloids interact via additional short-ranged attraction and long-ranged repulsion. The droplet-colloid interaction…
Anisotropic colloidal particles have the ability to self-assemble into cholesteric structures. We used molecular dynamics to simulate the self-assembly of ellipsoidal particles with the objective to establish a general framework to reveal…
Recent numerical simulations of hard helical particle systems unveiled the existence of a novel chiral nematic phase, termed screw-like, characterised by the helical organization of the particle C$_2$ symmetry axes round the nematic…
Lyotropic cholesteric liquid crystal phases are ubiquitously observed in biological and synthetic polymer solutions, characterized by a complex interplay between thermal fluctuations, entropic and enthalpic forces. The elucidation of the…
The propagation of chirality across scales is a common but poorly understood phenomenon in soft matter. In this work, we use computer simulations to study chiral monolayer assemblies formed by hard rod-like colloidal particles in the…
Polymeric particles are strong candidates for designing artificial materials capable of emulating the complex twisting-based functionality observed in biological systems. In this letter, we provide the first detailed investigation of the…
Even though chiral nematic phases were the first liquid crystals experimentally observed more than a century ago, the origin of the thermodynamic stability of cholesteric states is still unclear. In this Letter we address the problem by…
Active hydrodynamic theories are a powerful tool to study the emergent ordered phases of internally driven particles such as bird flocks, bacterial suspension and their artificial analogues. While theories of orientationally ordered phases…