12 research outputs found
Mixtures of Blue Phase Liquid Crystal with Simple Liquids: Elastic Emulsions and Cubic Fluid Cylinders.
We numerically investigate the behavior of a phase-separating mixture of a blue phase I liquid crystal with an isotropic fluid. The resulting morphology is primarily controlled by an inverse capillary number, Ï, setting the balance between interfacial and elastic forces. When Ï and the concentration of the isotropic component are both low, the blue phase disclination lattice templates a cubic array of fluid cylinders. For larger Ï, the isotropic phase arranges primarily into liquid emulsion droplets which coarsen very slowly, rewiring the blue phase disclination lines into an amorphous elastic network. Our blue phase-simple fluid composites can be externally manipulated: an electric field can trigger a morphological transition between cubic fluid cylinder phases with different topologies
Large Colloids in Cholesteric Liquid Crystals
International audienceno abstrac
Self-assembly of colloid-cholesteric composites provides a possible route to switchable optical materials
Colloidal particles dispersed in liquid crystals can form new materials with
tunable elastic and electro-optic properties. In a periodic `blue phase' host,
particles should template into colloidal crystals with potential uses in
photonics, metamaterials, and transformational optics. Here we show by computer
simulation that colloid/cholesteric mixtures can give rise to regular crystals,
glasses, percolating gels, isolated clusters, twisted rings and undulating
colloidal ropes. This structure can be tuned via particle concentration, and by
varying the surface interactions of the cholesteric host with both the
particles and confining walls. Many of these new materials are metastable: two
or more structures can arise under identical thermodynamic conditions. The
observed structure depends not only on the formulation protocol, but also on
the history of an applied electric field. This new class of soft materials
should thus be relevant to design of switchable, multistable devices for
optical technologies such as smart glass and e-paper.Comment: Manuscript with 3 figures plus supporting text and figure
A growing bacterial colony in two dimensions as an active nematic
Rod-shaped bacteria are an example of active matter. Here the authors find that a growing bacterial colony harbours internal cellular flows affecting orientational ordering in its interior and at the boundary. Results suggest this system may belong to a new active matter universality class
A coarse-grained simulation study of mesophase formation in a series of rodâcoil multiblock copolymers
International audienceno abstrac
Creation and manipulation of topological states in chiral nematic microspheres.
Topology is a universal concept that is encountered in daily life and is known to determine many static and dynamical properties of matter. Taming and controlling the topology of materials therefore constitutes a contemporary interdisciplinary challenge. Building on the controllable spatial properties of soft matter appears as a relevant strategy to address the challenge, in particular, because it may lead to paradigmatic model systems that allow checking theories experimentally. Here we report experimentally on a wealth of complex free-standing metastable topological architectures at the micron scale, in frustrated chiral nematic droplets. These results support recent works predicting the formation of free-standing knotted and linked disclination structures in confined chiral nematic fluids. We also demonstrate that various kinds of external fields (thermal, electrical and optical) can be used to achieve topological remote control. All this may foster the development of new devices based on topologically structured soft media.Photo-Engineered Helices in Chiral Liquid Crystal