相关论文: Parity Breaking in Nematic Tactoids
Nematic tactoids are spindle-shaped droplets of a nematic phase nucleated in the co-existing isotropic phase. According to equilibrium theory, their internal structure and shape are controlled by a balance between the elastic deformation of…
By means of computer simulations we study how droplets of hard, rod-like particles optimize their shape and internal structure under the influence of the osmotic compression caused by the presence of spherical particles that act as…
Tactoids are pointed, spindle-like droplets of nematic liquid crystal in an isotropic fluid. They have long been observed in inorganic and organic nematics, in thermotropic phases as well as lyotropic colloidal aggregates. The variational…
We stabilize nematic droplets with handles against surface-tension-driven instabilities using a yield-stress material as outer fluid and study the complex nematic textures and defect structures that result from the competition between…
Elastic constants of splay K_11, twist K_22, and bend K_33 of nematic liquid crystals are often assumed to be equal to each other in order to simplify the theoretical description of complex director fields. Here we present examples of how…
Tactoids are spindle shaped-droplets of a uniaxial nematic phase suspended in the co-existing isotropic phase. They are found in dispersions of a wide variety of elongated colloidal particles, including actin, fd virus, carbon nanotubes,…
Understanding and controlling the director field configuration, shape, and orientation in nematic and cholesteric liquid crystals is of fundamental importance in several branches of science. Liquid crystalline droplets, also known as…
Aqueous dispersions of exfoliated, bile-salt stabilized single-wall carbon nanotubes exhibit a first order transition to a nematic liquid-crystalline phase. The nematic phase presents itself in the form of micron-sized nematic droplets also…
Toroidal nematics are droplets of nematic liquid crystals in the form of a circular torus. When the nematic director is subject to planar degenerate boundary conditions, the bend-only director field with vector lines along the parallels of…
Toroidal nematics are nematic liquid crystals confined within a circular torus and subject to planar degenerate anchoring on the boundary of the torus. They may be droplets floating in an isotropic environment or cavities carved out of a…
Using computer simulations we investigate the microscopic structure of the singular director field within a nematic droplet. As a theoretical model for nematic liquid crystals we take hard spherocylinders. To induce an overall topological…
Recent experiments have shown how nematically-ordered tactoid shaped actin droplets can be reorganized and divided by the action of myosin molecular motors. In this paper, we consider how similar morphological changes can potentially be…
Various director configurations of a nematic liquid crystal, confined in a toroidal volume and subject to an external magnetic field, were evaluated numerically by performing finite element calculations in three dimensions. The equilibrium…
We studied in-plane bistable alignments of nematic liquid crystals confined by two frustrated surfaces by means of Monte Carlo simulations of the Lebwohl-Lasher spin model. The surfaces are prepared with orientational checkerboard patterns,…
The ground state of twist-bend nematic liquid crystals is a heliconical molecular arrangement in which the nematic director precesses uniformly about an axis, making a fixed angle with it. Both precession senses are allowed in the ground…
We study the director field around a spherical particle immersed in a uniformly aligned nematic liquid crystal and assume that the molecules prefer a homeotropic orientation at the surface of the particle. Three structures are possible: a…
The emergence of new techniques for the fabrication of nematic droplets with nontrivial topology provides new routes for the assembly of responsive devices. Here we perform a numerical study of spherical nematic droplets on fibres. We…
The extended Frank elastic energy density is used to investigate the existence of a stable periodically modulate structure that appears as a ground state exhibiting a twist-bend molecular arrangement. For an unbounded sample, we show that…
We analyze stability of the planar orientational structure in a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) cell with planar anchoring conditions at both substrates. Specifically, we study the instabilities of the ground state caused by surface elasticity…
An isolated charge-neutral droplet in a uniform electric field experiences no net force. However, a droplet pair can move in response to field-induced dipolar and hydrodynamic interactions. If the droplets are identical, the center of mass…