相关论文: Quantification of Nematic Cell Polarity in Three-d…
Topological spin and polar textures have fascinated people in different areas of physics and technologies. However, the observations are limited in magnetic and solid-state ferroelectric systems. Ferroelectric nematic is the first…
The recently discovered ferroelectric nematic liquids incorporate to the functional combination of fluidity, processability and anisotropic optical properties of nematic liquids, an astonishing range of physical properties derived from the…
To understand the relationship between the chirality of individual cells and that of tissues and organisms, we have developed a chiral polarized particle model to investigate the movement of cell populations on substrates. Our model…
We study stability and distortions of liquid crystal nematic order in a cell with a random heterogeneous substrate. Modeling this system as a bulk xy model with quenched disorder confined to a surface, we find that nematic order is…
Confluent populations of elongated cells give rise to ordered patterns seen in nematic phase liquid crystals. We correlate cell elongation and intercellular distance with intercellular alignment using an amorphous spin glass model. We…
We use molecular dynamics to study the ordering of a nematic liquid crystal around a spherical particle or droplet. Homeotropic boundary conditions and strong anchoring create a hedgehog director configuration on the particle surface and in…
When it is polarised, a cell develops an asymmetric distribution of specific molecular markers, cytoskeleton and cell membrane shape. Polarisation can occur spontaneously or be triggered by external signals, like gradients of signalling…
The polarisation of cells and tissues is fundamental for tissue morphogenesis during biological development and regeneration. A deeper understanding of biological polarity pattern formation can be gained from the consideration of pattern…
Biological tissues transform between solid-like and liquid-like states in many fundamental physiological events. Recent experimental observations further suggest that in two-dimensional epithelial tissues these solid-liquid transformations…
How can a collection of motile cells, each generating contractile nematic stresses in isolation, become an extensile nematic at the tissue-level? Understanding this seemingly contradictory experimental observation, which occurs irrespective…
One of the central experimental efforts in nematic colloids research aims to explore how the interplay between the geometry of particles along with the accompanying nematic director deformations and defects around them can provide a means…
We develop a lattice model for the splay flexoelectric effect in nematic liquid crystals. In this model, each lattice site has a spin representing the local molecular orientation, and the interaction between neighboring spins represents…
Polar nematic liquid crystals are new classes of condensed-matter states where the inversion symmetry common to the traditional apolar nematics is broken. Establishing theoretical descriptions for the novel phase states is an urgent task.…
Cell polarity and movement are fundamental to many biological functions. Experimental and theoretically studies have indicated that interactions of certain proteins lead to the cell polarization which plays a key role in controlling the…
How the cells break symmetry and organize their edge activity to move directionally is a fun- damental question in cell biology. Physical models of cell motility commonly rely on gradients of regulatory factors and/or feedback from the…
Understanding nanoscale mechanisms responsible for the recently discovered ferroelectric nematics can be helped by direct visualization of self-assembly of strongly polar molecules. Here we report on scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)…
Recent experimental discoveries of novel nematic types with polar order, including ferroelectric nematic and splay nematic have brought the resurgence of the interest in polar and modulated phases. One of the most important factors that is…
Polar solitons, i.e., solitonic waves accompanying asymmetry of geometry or phase, have garnered attention in polar systems, such as ferroelectric or magnetoelectric materials, where they play a critical role in topological transitions and…
We extend our previous work on monolayers of uniaxial particles [J. Chem. Phys. 140, 204906 (2014)] to study the effect of particle biaxiality on the phase behavior of liquid-crystal monolayers. Particles are modelled as board-like hard…
The possible symmetries of the biaxial nematic phase are examined against the implications of the presently available experimental results. Contrary to the widespread notion that biaxial nematics have orthorhombic symmetry, our study shows…