相关论文: Boundary Effects in Chiral Polymer Hexatics
I describe new phases of a chiral liquid crystal with nematic and hexatic order. I find a conical phase, similar to that of a cholesteric in an applied magnetic field for Frank elastic constants $K_2>K_3$. I discuss the role of fluctuations…
We report the discovery of a new Twist Grain Boundary phase. This phase is characterised by a 2-dimensional undulation of the smectic C* like blocks in the form of a square lattice. We suggest that this three dimensionally modulated…
In the hexagonal columnar phase of chiral polymers a bias towards cholesteric twist competes with braiding along an average direction. When the chirality is strong, topological defects proliferate, leading to either a tilt grain boundary…
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…
By molecular modeling we demonstrate that the nematic long-range order discovered in bent-core liquid crystal systems should reveal further spatially homogeneous phases. Two of them are identified as a tetrahedratic nematic ($N_T$) phase…
Chiral polymers are ubiquitous in nature and in the cellular context they are often found in association with membranes. Here we show that surface bound polymers with an intrinsic twist and anisotropic bending stiffness can exhibit a sharp…
Anisotropic pair breaking close to surfaces favors the chiral A phase of the superfluid $^3$He over the time-reversal invariant B phase. Confining the superfluid $^3$He into a cavity of height $D$ of the order of the Cooper pair size…
The chiral phase transition in QCD at finite chemical potential and temperature can be characterized for small chemical potential by its curvature and the transition temperature. The curvature is accessible to QCD lattice simulations, which…
We have studied the properties of biaxial particles interacting via an anisotropic pair potential, involving second rank quadrupolar and third rank octupolar coupling terms, using Monte Carlo simulation. The particles occupy the sites of a…
Some highly unusual features of a lipid-water liquid crystal are revealed by high pressure x-ray diffraction, light scattering and dilatometric studies of the lamellar (bilayer $L_{\alpha}$) to nonlamellar inverse hexagonal ($H_{II}$) phase…
Colloidal particles trapped at an interface between two fluids can form a wide range of different structures. Replacing one of the fluid with a liquid crystal increases the complexity of interactions and results in a greater range of…
In equilibrium liquid crystals, chirality leads to a variety of spectacular three-dimensional structures, but chiral and achiral phases with the same broken continuous symmetries have identical long-time, large-scale dynamics. In this…
We analyse the effects that the impermeability constraint induces on the equilibrium shapes of a three-dimensional vesicle hosting a rigid inclusion. A given alteration of the inclusion and/or vesicle parameters leads to shape modifications…
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…
Vibrated monolayers of granular particles confined into horizontal cavities form a variety of fluid patterns with orientational order that resemble equilibrium liquid-crystal phases. In some cases one can identify nematic and smectic…
Dipoles in triangular optical ladders constitute a flexible platform for the study of the interplay between geometric frustration and long-range anisotropic interactions, and in particular for the observation of the spontaneous onset of…
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…
By imposing twisted boundary conditions on quark fields it is possible to access components of momenta other than integer multiples of 2pi/L on a lattice with spatial volume L^3. We use Chiral Perturbation Theory to study finite-volume…
Intimately connected to the rule of life, chirality remains a long-time fascination in biology, chemistry, physics and materials science. Chiral structures, e.g., nucleic acid and cholesteric phase developed from chiral molecules are common…
Chiral molecules form a number of non-chiral structures, the simplest being an isotropic fluid phase. In a mesophase of achiral molecules the fluctuations will on average be achiral as well: left-handed twists and right-handed twists will…