Soft Matter Theory & Simulations Group

PRE: Liq. Cryst.

• Interactions of charged microrods in chiral nematic liquid crystals
  Author(s): Muhammed Rasi M., Ravi Kumar Pujala, Sathyanarayana Paladugu, and Surajit DharaWe study the pair interaction of charged silica microrods in chiral nematic liquid crystals and show that the microrods with homeotropic surface anchoring form a bound state due to the competing effect of electrostatic (Coulomb) and elastic interactions. The robustness […]
• Variety of subphase emerging sequences, the frustration of three main phases, $\mathrm{Sm}{C}_{A}^{*}$, $\mathrm{Sm}{C}^{*}$, and $\mathrm{Sm}A$, and the long-range interlayer interactions
  Author(s): Atsuo Fukuda, Jagdish K. Vij, and Yoichi TakanishiPrompted by the existence of biaxial subphases 1/4, 2/5, and 3/7 [Phys. Rev. E 96, 012701 (2017)], we reconsidered the three-phase frustration and the resulting degeneracy lifting by combining the phase diagram of $\mathrm{Sm}{C}_{A}^{*}$, $\mathrm{Sm}{C}^{*}$, and $\mathrm{Sm}A$ with the discrete […]
• Simple molecular model for ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals exhibited by small rodlike mesogens
  Author(s): N. V. MadhusudanaNematic liquid crystals (NLCs) are the prime example of a liquid medium with an apolar orientational order. In the past couple of years, the ferroelectric nematic (FN) phase has been discovered in some compounds with small rodlike molecules with large longitudinal dipole moments and very restricted ...[Phys. Rev. E 104, 014704] Pu […]
• Nematoelasticity of hybrid molecular-colloidal liquid crystals
  Author(s): B. Senyuk, H. Mundoor, I. I. Smalyukh, and H. H. WensinkColloidal rods immersed in a thermotropic liquid-crystalline solvent are at the basis of so-called hybrid liquid crystals, which are characterized by tunable nematic fluidity with symmetries ranging from conventional uniaxial nematic or antinematic to orthorhombic [Mundoor et al., Science 360 […]
• Dynamics of capillary coalescence and breakup: Quasi-two-dimensional nematic and isotropic droplets
  Author(s): P. V. Dolganov, A. S. Zverev, K. D. Baklanova, and V. K. DolganovWe observed the formation of small satellite droplets from the bridge at droplet coalescence. Investigations were made using a Hele-Shaw cell in the two-phase region at the nematic-isotropic phase transition. In previous works on coalescence it was considered that before the start of […]
• Conically degenerate anchoring effect in planar nematic-liquid-crystal shells
  Author(s): Seyed Reza Seyednejad and Mohammad Reza MozaffariWe study the defect texture in symmetric and asymmetric states of a nematic-liquid-crystal shell with conic and planar degenerate surface anchorings on the inner and outer spherical boundaries, respectively. To achieve the equilibrium nematic orientation, we numerically minimize the Landau–de Gennes […]
• Effect of electric fields on the director field and shape of nematic tactoids
  Author(s): Mohammadamin Safdari, Roya Zandi, and Paul van der SchootTactoids are spindle-shaped droplets of a uniaxial nematic phase suspended in the coexisting isotropic phase. They are found in dispersions of a wide variety of elongated colloidal particles, including actin, fd virus, carbon nanotubes, vanadium peroxide, and chitin nanocrystals. Recent expe […]
• Microfluidics of liquid crystals induced by laser radiation
  Author(s): Izabela S̀liwa, Pavel V. Maslennikov, and Alex V. ZakharovSeveral scenarios for the formation of hydrodynamic flows in microsized hybrid aligned nematic (HAN) channels, based on the appropriate nonlinear extension of the classical Ericksen-Leslie theory, supplemented by thermomechanical correction of the shear stress and Rayleigh dissipation funct […]
• Reentrant prewavy instability in competition between rising and twist modes in ac field-driven electroconvection
  Author(s): Jong-Hoon Huh and Naoto MiyagawaWe report on the prewavy (PW) instability in ac field-driven electrohydrodynamics that is induced in a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) sandwiched between parallel electrodes. The instability is characterized by a twist mode of the NLC director along the vertical orientation to the electrodes (i.e., the...[Phys. Rev. E […]
• Shear-enhanced elasticity in the cubic blue phase I
  Author(s): Shuji Fujii and Oliver HenrichWe present results of the linear and nonlinear rheology of the cubic blue phase I (BPI). The elasticity of BPI is dominated by double-twist cylinders assembled in a body-centered cubic lattice, which can be specified by disclination lines. We find that the elasticity of BPI is enhanced by an order o...[Phys. Rev. E 10 […]