In the wake of previous studies on the rattling-and-jumping diffusion in smectic liquid crystal phases of colloidal rods, we analyze here for the first time the heterogeneous dynamics in columnar phases. More specifically, we perform computer simulations to investigate the relaxation dynamics of a binary mixture of perfectly aligned hard spherocylinders. We detect that the columnar arrangement ...

In this paper, we demonstrate and thoroughly analyze the activation volumetric properties of selected liquid crystals in the nematic and crystalline E phases in comparison with those reported for glass-forming liquids. In the analysis, we have employed and evaluated two entropic models (based on either total or configurational entropies) to describe the longitudinal relaxation times of the liqu...

Electrically controlled dynamics of fluids and particles at microscales is a fascinating area of research with applications ranging from microfluidics and sensing to sorting of biomolecules. The driving mechanisms are electric forces acting on spatially separated charges in an isotropic medium such as water. Here, we demonstrate that anisotropic conductivity of liquid crystals enables new mecha...

Nematic fluids with polar order could be most useful new molecular materials. However, such ferroelectric liquid crystals have not been observed as yet. This paper describes the first computer simulations of a ferroelectric nematic phase made from simple tapered particles as shown in the picture and gives some hints about the relevant molecular features.

Liquid crystals are phases of matter intermediate between crystals and liquids. Whereas classical liquid crystals have been known for a long time and are used in electro-optical displays, much less is known about their quantum counterparts. There is growing evidence that quantum liquid crystals play a central role in many electron systems including high temperature superconductors, but a quanti...

Digital addressing of the electrical signal in spatial light modulators, as it is the case in present liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) displays, may lead to temporal phase fluctuations in the optical beam. In diffractive optics applications a reduction in the modulation diffraction efficiency may be expected. Experimental work is done characterizing the fluctuations amplitude and phase depth fo...

Small water droplets dispersed in a nematic liquid crystal exhibit a novel class of colloidal interactions, arising from the orientational elastic energy of the anisotropic host fluid. These interactions include a short-range repulsion and a long-range dipolar attraction, and they lead to the formation of anisotropic chainlike structures by the colloidal particles. The repulsive interaction can...

Recent measurements of nematic-smectic A pressure-temperature phase boundaries obtained in bilayer forming smectic A liquid crystals are analyzed. A thermodynamic model which accounts for the elliptical shape of the phase boundaries and which facilitates determination of the various parameters determining the phase boundary is presented and discussed.