The existence of the elusive biaxial phase has been the subject of much discussion since it was predicted by Freiser in 1970. More recently, there have been numerous attempts to find a thermotropic liquid crystal that exhibits a biaxial phase and with this, conflicting reports about whether such a phase has been positively identified in bent-core liquid crystals. One reason for the discrepancy ...

We present a simple coarse-grained lattice model for monodomain biaxial liquid-crystal elastomers and perform large-scale Monte Carlo simulations in the proposed model system. Orientational ordering--uniaxial or biaxial--reflects in sample deformations on cooling the system. The simulation output is used to predict calorimetry data and deuterium magnetic resonance spectra.

Monte Carlo simulations of polarizing microscope textures for confined nematic droplets are presented. We consider uniaxial and biaxial cases with various boundary conditions and different values of the molecular biaxiality. The analysis of these optical textures should be of interest in assigning and characterizing biaxial nematic system, an issue of great current interest.

Amorphous indium–gallium–zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) thin films were deposited using RF magnetron sputtering on polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) flexible substrates and their mechanical flexibility investigated using uniaxial tensile and buckling tests coupled with in situ optical microscopy. The uniaxial fragmentation test demonstrated that the crack onset strain of ...

A statistical theory of cholesteric liquid crystals composed of short rigid biaxial molecules is presented. It is derived in the thermodynamic limit at a small density and a small twist. The uniaxial (biaxial) cholesteric phase is regarded as a distorted form of the uniaxial (biaxial) nematic phase. The chirality of the interactions and the implementation of the inversion to the rotation matrix...

Variational cluster calculations and Monte Carlo simulations are applied to hard-body board-like models of biaxial molecules forming liquid crystalline phases. The molecular long axes are assumed for simplicity to be fully oriented. Depending on the extent of transverse anisometry in the molecular shape, these systems can exhibit biaxial nematic phases as well as uniaxial and biaxial orthogonal...

A biaxial version of the Gay-Beme potential used to model uniaxial anisotropic molecules is developed. This novel biaxial potential can be used to deal with molecules with different attractive and repulsive contributions along their three axes. The Gay-Berne (GB) [l] potential can be regarded as an anisotropic and shifted version of the Lennard-Jones 6-12 (LJ) interaction suitable for uniaxial ...

Field-induced reorientation of colloidal particles is especially relevant to manipulate the optical properties a nanomaterial for target applications. We have recently shown that surprisingly feeble external stimuli are able transform uniaxial nematic liquid crystals (LCs) cuboidal into biaxial LCs. In light these results, here we apply an field forces cuboids in LCs and sparks uniaxial-to-biax...

We propose that, for materials having positive dielectric anisotropy, the biaxiality can be clearly verified or excluded by measuring the transmitted light intensity as a function of electric field. If the material is biaxial and is observed in homeotropically aligned cells, the schlieren texture should not disappear (transmitted intensity is not zero) even at very high fields, since the field ...

Incisional hernia development is a significant complication after laparoscopic abdominal surgery. Intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) is known to initiate the extrusion of intestines through the abdominal wall, but there is limited data on the mechanics of IAP generation and the structural properties of rectus sheath. This paper presents an explanation of the mechanics of IAP development, a study of...