相关论文: Topology and ground state degeneracy of tetrahedra…

We show that the stacking of flat aromatic molecules on a curved surface results in topological defects. We consider, as an example, spherical vesicles, self-assembled from molecules with 5- and 6-thiophene cores. We predict that the…

Recent experimental observations have suggested that topological defects can facilitate the creation of sharp features in developing embryos. Whereas these observations echo established knowledge about the interplay between geometry and…

We propose a general formalism to characterize orientational frustration of smectic liquid crystals in confinement by interpreting the emerging networks of grain boundaries as objects with a topological charge. In a formal idealization,…

In an elegant paper, D. Nelson suggested a method to produce tetravalent colloids based on a tetrahedral configuration created on the surface of a spherical particle. It emerges from a two-dimensional nematic liquid crystal placed on a…

We study both experimentally and theoretically the self-assembly of binary block copolymers in dilute solution, where self-assembly is triggered by changing the solvent from the common good solvent THF to the selective solvent water, and…

Epithelial monolayers are a central building block of complex organisms. Topological defects have emerged as important elements for single cell behavior in flat epithelia. Here we theoretically study such defects in a three-dimensional…

The transition from a nematic to an isotropic state in a self-closing spherical liquid crystal shell with tangential alignment is a stimulating phenomenon to investigate, as the topology dictates that the shell exhibits local isotropic…

We analyse liquid-crystalline ordering in vertically vibrated monolayers of cylinders confined in a circular cavity. Short cylinders form tetratic arrangements with C$_4$ symmetry. This symmetry, which is incompatible with the geometry of…

We investigate the morphology of a toroidal fluid membrane vesicle confined inside a spherical container. The equilibrium shapes are assembled in a geometrical phase diagram as a function of scaled area and reduced volume of the membrane.…

We systematically explore the self-assembly of semi-flexible polymers in deformable spherical confinement across a wide regime of chain stiffness, contour lengths and packing fractions by means of coarse-grained molecular dynamics…

Amphiphilic block copolymer solutions form various micellar structures including micelles and vesicles. We applied the density functional theory for block copolymers which we have proposed to amphiphilic block copolymer systems. The 3…

This paper reviews the research work on the liquid crystalline (LC) polymer vesicles (polymersomes), where the thermotropic nematic and smectic phases are displayed in the lyotropic bilayer polymer membrane. LC polymersomes possess the…

We consider the shear flow of well-aligned one-component smectic phases, such as thermotropic smectics and lamellar diblock copolymers, below the critical region. We show that, as a result of thermal fluctuations of the layers, parallel…

Using particle-resolved molecular-dynamics simulations, we compute the phase diagram for soft repulsive spherocylinders confined on the surface of a sphere. While crystal (K), smectic (Sm), and isotropic (I) phases exhibit a stability…

We present a scheme to explicitly construct and classify general topological states jointly protected by an onsite symmetry group and a spatial symmetry group. We show that all these symmetry protected topological states can be…

We carry out Monte Carlo simulations on fluid membranes with orientational order and multiple edges in the presence and absence of external forces. The membrane resists bending and has an edge tension, the orientational order couples with…

The smectic C (smC) phase represents a unique class of liquid crystal phases characterised by the layered arrangement of molecules with tilted orientations with respect to layer normals. Building upon the real-valued tensorial smectic A…

We use classical molecular dynamics combined with the recently developed metadynamics method [A. Laio and M. Parrinello, Procs. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99, 20 (2002)] to study the process of bulk melting in hexagonal ice. Our simulations show…

Determining the equilibrium configuration and shape of curved two-dimensional films with (generalized) liquid crystalline (LC) order is a difficult infinite dimensional problem of direct relevance to the study of generalized polymersomes,…

A stack of tensionless membranes with nonlinear curvature energy and vertical harmonic interaction is studied. At low temperatures, the system forms a lamellar phase. At a critical temperature, the stack disorders vertically in a…