Some Mathematics and Modelling of Liquid Crystals
Time: 2023-09-20
Published By: Xiaoni Tan
Speaker(s): James Luke Dalby(University of Strathclyde)
Time: 11:00-12:00 September 21, 2023
Venue: Room 9, Quan Zhai, BICMR
Abstract: We analytically and numerically investigate pattern formation in a variety of liquid crystalline systems. In the first part of the talk, we study Order reconstruction (OR) solutions within the Landau-de Gennes theory for nematic liquid crystals in long shallow channel geometries. OR solutions describe liquid crystal polydomains, i.e., subdomains of distinct director orientation separated by domain walls. Such solutions are of interest due to their potential applications in drug delivery technologies and optical devices for instance. We investigate OR solutions in different physical settings, namely, nematic liquid crystals, passive and active nematodynamics, and ferronematics. In the second part, we look at stochastic modelling of nematic liquid crystals confined to square domains. In the deterministic case, the problem is well understood, allowing us to compare and contrast the effects of random noise introduced by our stochastic model.