Explanipedia

Unavoidable multilevel biaxial symmetry breaking in chiral hybrid liquid crystals Open

Jin-Sheng Wu, Marina Torres Lázaro, Souvik Ghosh, Haridas Mundoor, H. H. Wensink , et al. · 2025

Chiral nematic or cholesteric liquid crystals (LCs) are fluid mesophases with long-ranged orientational order featuring a quasilayered periodicity imparted by a helical director configuration but lacking long-range positional order. Doping…

Freezing in flat monolayers of soft spherocylinders Open

Jaydeep Mandal, H. H. Wensink, Prabal K. Maiti · 2025

Lamellar or smectic phases often have an intricate intralamellar structure that remains scarcely understood from a microscopic viewpoint. In this work, we use molecular dynamics simulations to study the effect of volume exclusion on the ph…

Spontaneous Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Polydisperse Achiral Near-Rigid Nematogens Open

William S. Fall, H. H. Wensink · 2025

Understanding chirality transfer from the molecular to the macroscopic scale poses a significant challenge in soft and biological condensed matter physics. Many nanorods of biological origin not only have chiral molecular features but also…

Freezing in flat monolayers of soft spherocylinders Open

Jaydeep Mandal, H. H. Wensink, Prabal K. Maiti · 2025

Lamellar or smectic phases often have an intricate intralamellar structure that remains scarcely understood from a microscopic viewpoint. In this work, we use molecular dynamics simulations to study the effect of volume exclusion and elect…

Emergent biaxiality in chiral hybrid liquid crystals Open

Jin-Sheng Wu, Marina Torres Lázaro, Haridas Mundoor, H. H. Wensink, Ivan I. Smalyukh · 2024

Macroscopic observation of a first order one-dimensional swelling-deswelling transition in a nanolayered material Open

Osvaldo Trigueiro Neto, Kristopher R. Olsen, H. H. Wensink, Barbara Pacáková, Jon Otto Fossum · 2024

The high purity and superior quality of the synthetic clay mineral fluorohectorite allows for studies of phenomena that are masked by imperfections and the inhomogeneous charge distribution in the case of natural clay minerals. We have exp…

Complex Smectic Phases in Polymer Grafted Shape-Uniform Cellulose Nano-Crystals Open

William S. Fall, H. H. Wensink · 2024

The effect of short chain grafting on the liquid crystalline (LC) ordering of nano-crystals is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations of a coarse-grained grafted nano-rod model. Monodisperse nano-rods, with aspect ratios typical…

Complex Smectic Phases in Polymer-Grafted Shape-Uniform Cellulose Nano-Crystals Open

William S. Fall, H. H. Wensink · 2024

The effect of short chain grafting on the liquid crystalline (LC) ordering of nano-crystals is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations of a coarse-grained grafted nano-rod model. Monodisperse nano-rods, with aspect ratios typical…

Large-area, self-healing block copolymer membranes for energy conversion Open

Christian C. M. Sproncken, Peng Liu, Justin Monney, William S. Fall, Carolina Pierucci , et al. · 2024

Membranes are widely used for separation processes in applications such as water desalination, batteries and dialysis, and are crucial in key sectors of our economy and society 1 . The majority of technologically exploited membranes are ba…

Pre-Smectic Ordering and the Unwinding Helix in Monte Carlo Simulations of Cholesteric Liquid-Crystals Open

Paul E. Brumby, Akie Kowaguchi, Takuma Nozawa, Kenji Yasuoka, H. H. Wensink · 2023

In this paper, molecular chirality is studied for liquid-crystal fluids represented by hard rods with the addition of an attractive chiral dispersion term. Chiral forces between molecular pairs are assumed to be long-ranged and are describ…

Unavoidable emergent biaxiality in chiral molecular-colloidal hybrid liquid crystals Open

Jin-Sheng Wu, Marina Torres Lázaro, Souvik Ghosh, Haridas Mundoor, H. H. Wensink , et al. · 2023

Chiral nematic or cholesteric liquid crystals (LCs) are mesophases with long-ranged orientational order featuring a quasi-layered periodicity imparted by a helical configuration but lacking positional order. Doping molecular cholesteric LC…

Crystalline restacking of 2D-materials from their nanosheets suspensions Open

Lina Cherni, Karin El Rifaii, H. H. Wensink, Sarah M. Chevrier, Claire Goldmann , et al. · 2023

We report a highly ordered restacking of the 2D phosphatoantimonic materials H 3(1− x ) M 3 x Sb 3 P 2 O 14 , (where M = Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs and 0 ≤ x ≤ 1), from their nanosheets dispersed in colloidal suspension, induced by a simple pH chan…

Multiphase Coexistence in Binary Hard Colloidal Mixtures: Predictions from a Simple Algebraic Theory Open

Joeri Opdam, Vincent F. D. Peters, H. H. Wensink, Remco Tuinier · 2022

A general theoretical framework is proposed to quantify the thermodynamic properties of multicomponent hard colloidal mixtures. This framework is used to predict the phase behavior of mixtures of rods with spheres and rods with plates taki…

Do Aqueous Suspensions of Smectite Clays Form a Smectic Liquid-Crystalline Phase? Open

Karin El Rifaii, H. H. Wensink, I. Dozov, Thomas Bizien, Laurent J. Michot , et al. · 2022

Bottom-up strategies for the production of well-defined nanostructures often rely on the self-assembly of anisotropic colloidal particles (nanowires and nanosheets). These building blocks can be obtained by delamination in a solvent of low…

Capillary-driven biaxial planar and homeotropic nematization of hard cylinders Open

Roohollah Aliabadi, Soudabe Nasirimoghadam, H. H. Wensink · 2022

We use the Parsons-Lee modification of Onsager's second virial theory within the restricted orientation (Zwanzig) approximation to analyze the phase behavior of hard cylindrical rods confined in narrow pores. Depending on the wall-to-wall …

Second-virial theory for shape-persistent living polymers templated by discs Open

Marina Torres Lázaro, Roohollah Aliabadi, H. H. Wensink · 2021

Living polymers composed of non-covalently bonded building blocks with weak backbone flexibility may self-assemble into thermoresponsive lyotropic liquid crystals. We demonstrate that the reversible polymer assembly and phase behavior can …

Multiphase Coexistences in Rod–Polymer Mixtures Open

Vincent F. D. Peters, Álvaro González García, H. H. Wensink, Mark Vis, Remco Tuinier · 2021

Using recently derived analytical equations of state for hard rod dispersions, we predict the phase behavior of athermal rod-polymer mixtures with free volume theory. The rods are modeled as hard spherocylinders, while the nonadsorbing pol…

Nematoelasticity of hybrid molecular-colloidal liquid crystals Open

Bohdan Senyuk, Haridas Mundoor, Ivan I. Smalyukh, H. H. Wensink · 2021

Colloidal 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 an…

Thermally reconfigurable monoclinic nematic colloidal fluids Open

Haridas Mundoor, Jin-Sheng Wu, H. H. Wensink, Ivan I. Smalyukh · 2021

Fine tuning the structural colours of photonic nanosheet suspensions by polymer doping Open

Karin El Rifaii, H. H. Wensink, Claire Goldmann, Laurent J. Michot, Jean‐Christophe P. Gabriel , et al. · 2021

Doping a photonic lamellar mesophase of mineral nanosheets with low (resp. high) molecular weight PEO shifts its colour from green to blue (resp. red).

Destabilization of the Nematic Phase of Clay Nanosheet Suspensions by Polymer Adsorption Open

Karin El Rifaii, H. H. Wensink, Thomas Bizien, Jean‐Christophe P. Gabriel, Laurent J. Michot , et al. · 2020

Complex aqueous mixtures comprised of swelling clays and hydrosoluble polymers naturally occur in soils and play a major role in pedogenesis. They are also very often used for formulating oil-well drilling fluids, paints, and personal-care…

Defying the Gibbs Phase Rule: Evidence for an Entropy-Driven Quintuple Point in Colloid-Polymer Mixtures Open

V. F. D. Peters, Mark Vis, Álvaro González García, H. H. Wensink, Remco Tuinier · 2020

Using a minimal algebraic model for the thermodynamics of binary rod-polymer mixtures, we provide evidence for a quintuple phase equilibrium; an observation that seems to be at odds with the Gibbs phase rule for two-component systems. Our …

Algebraic equations of state for the liquid crystalline phase behavior of hard rods Open

Vincent F. D. Peters, Mark Vis, H. H. Wensink, Remco Tuinier · 2020

Based on simplifications of previous numerical calculations [H. Graf and H. Löwen, Phys. Rev. E 59, 1932 (1999)1063-651X10.1103/PhysRevE.59.1932], we propose algebraic free energy expressions for the smectic-A liquid crystal phase and the …

Tetrahedrality Dictates Dynamics in Hard Sphere Mixtures Open

Susana Marín-Aguilar, H. H. Wensink, Giuseppe Foffi, Frank Smallenburg · 2020

The link between local structure and dynamical slowdown in glassy fluids has been the focus of intense debate for the better part of a century. Nonetheless, a simple method to predict the dynamical behavior of a fluid purely from its local…

Rotational and translational dynamics in dense fluids of patchy particles Open

Susana Marín-Aguilar, H. H. Wensink, Giuseppe Foffi, Frank Smallenburg · 2020

We explore the effect of directionality on rotational and translational relaxation in glassy systems of patchy particles. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we analyze the impact of two distinct patch geometries, one that enhances the l…

Polymeric Nematics of Associating Rods: Phase Behavior, Chiral Propagation, and Elasticity Open

H. H. Wensink · 2019

International audience

Effect of size polydispersity on the pitch of nanorod cholesterics Open

H. H. Wensink · 2019

Many nanoparticle-based chiral liquid crystals are composed of polydisperse rod-shaped particles with considerable spread in size or shape, affecting the mesoscale chiral properties in, as yet, unknown ways. Using an algebraic interpretati…

Effect of Size Polydispersity on the Pitch of Nanorod Cholesterics Open

H. H. Wensink · 2019

Many nanoparticle-based chiral liquid crystals are composed of polydisperse rod-shaped particles with considerable spread in size or shape, affecting the mesoscale chiral properties in, as yet, unknown ways. Using an algebraic interpretati…

Slowing down supercooled liquids by manipulating their local structure Open

Susana Marín-Aguilar, H. H. Wensink, Giuseppe Foffi, Frank Smallenburg · 2019

In this paper, we propose a simple directional colloidal model that reinforces the optimal icosahedral local structure of binary hard-sphere glasses. We show that this specific symmetry results in a dramatic slowing down of the dynamics.

Designing slower glasses by manipulating their local structure Open

Susana Marín Aguilar, H. H. Wensink, Giuseppe Foffi, Frank Smallenburg · 2018

Glasses remain an elusive and poorly understood state of matter. For example, it is not clear how we can design an efficient macroscopic glass former by tuning the properties of its microscopic building blocks. In this paper, we propose a …

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