相关论文: Active shape-morphing elastomeric colloids in shor…
The physical gelation of colloids produces elastic structures that are commonly used to stabilize complex fluids in multiple industries. However, the ability to control the level of elastic modulus of these materials is limited by the…
Gel-immobilized colloidal crystals were prepared to obtain hybrid plasmonic-photonic crystals, in which electric field enhancement to a greater extent than that due to localized surface plasmons (LSP) alone was expected due to coupling…
Cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers have interesting and potentially very useful photonic properties. In an ideal monodomain configuration of these materials, one finds a Bragg-reflection of light in a narrow wavelength range and a…
Artificial soft matter systems have appeared as important tools to harness mechanical motion for microscale manipulation. Typically, this motion is driven either by the external fields or by mutual interaction between the colloids. In the…
We numerically study the dynamics of quasi-two dimensional cholesteric liquid crystal droplets in the presence of a time-dependent electric field, rotating at constant angular velocity. A surfactant sitting at droplet interface is also…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are soft phase-changing solids that exhibit large reversible contractions upon heating, Goldstone-like soft modes and resultant microstructural instabilities. We heat a planar LCE slab to isotropic, clamp…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are a stimuli-responsive material which has been intensively studied for applications including artificial muscles, shape morphing structures, and soft robotics, due to its capability of large, programmable,…
Aiming at fabrication of hybrid plasmonic-photonic crystals, gel-immobilized colloidal crystals made of a polystyrene colloidal suspension and an N-(Hydroxy methyl)acrylamid-based gel were immersed into an aqueous dispersion of gold…
Self-organization phenomena in ensembles of self-propelled particles open pathways to the synthesis of new dynamic states not accessible by traditional equilibrium processes. The challenge is to develop a set of principles that facilitate…
Nuclei of ordered materials emerging from the isotropic state usually show a shape topologically equivalent to a sphere; the well-known examples are crystals and nematic liquid crystal droplets. In this work, we explore experimentally and…
A liquid crystal optical device made of an optically anisotropic heterostructure is considered. The device consists of a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) layer sandwiched by two phase-shifting anisotropic layers of a nematic liquid crystal…
Liquid crystal elastomers represent a novel class of programmable shape-transforming materials whose shape change trajectory is encoded in the material's nematic director field. Using three-dimensional nonlinear finite element…
Selective spatial control of chemical reactions at the level of individual nanostructures remains a significant challenge. We introduce a light-activated system that combines plasmonic gold nanorods with a poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)…
Active forces occurring within cells can drive crucial biological processes that involve spontaneous organization and shape change, such as cell division. Motivated by recent in vitro experiments of nematic droplets of cytoskeletal…
In addition to the self-governing properties, tiny metallic colloids are the building blocks of larger particles. This topic has been the subject of many studies. This work discusses the results of three different experiments. Attained…
Light-activated self-propelled colloids are synthesized and their active motion is studied using optical microscopy. We propose a versatile route using different photoactive materials, and demonstrate a multiwavelength activation and…
Motile liquid crystal (LC) colloids show peculiar behavior due to the high sensitivity to external stimuli driven by the LC elastic and surface effects. However, few studies focus on harnessing the LC phase transitions to propel colloidal…
The room temperature liquid metal is quickly emerging as an important functional material in a variety of areas like chip cooling, 3D printing or printed electronics etc. With diverse capabilities in electrical, thermal and flowing…
Cholesteric Liquid Crystals (CLCs), subject to externally applied magnetic fields and confined between two parallel planar surfaces with strong homeotropic anchoring conditions, are found to undergo transitions to different types of…
Nontrivial shape of colloidal particles create complex elastic distortions and topological defects in liquid crystals and play a key role in governing their electrophoretic propulsion through the medium. Here, we report experimental results…