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Full-Text Articles in Physics

A Cellulose Liquid Crystal Motor: A Steam Engine Of The Second Kind, Yong Geng, Pedro Lucio Almeida, Cheng Cheng, Peter Palffy-Muhoray, Maria Helena Godinho, Susete Nogueira Fernandes Oct 2013

A Cellulose Liquid Crystal Motor: A Steam Engine Of The Second Kind, Yong Geng, Pedro Lucio Almeida, Cheng Cheng, Peter Palffy-Muhoray, Maria Helena Godinho, Susete Nogueira Fernandes

Peter Palffy-Muhoray

The salient feature of liquid crystal elastomers and networks is strong coupling between orientational order and mechanical strain. Orientational order can be changed by a wide variety of stimuli, including the presence of moisture. Changes in the orientation of constituents give rise to stresses and strains, which result in changes in sample shape. We have utilized this effect to build soft cellulose-based motor driven by humidity. The motor consists of a circular loop of cellulose film, which passes over two wheels. When humid air is present near one of the wheels on one side of the film, with drier air …


Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation In Nematic Liquid Crystals, Peter Palffy-Muhoray, J. A. Reyes Oct 2013

Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation In Nematic Liquid Crystals, Peter Palffy-Muhoray, J. A. Reyes

Peter Palffy-Muhoray

We derive the amplitude equation, in the weakly nonlinear regime, for an optical wave packet that propagates in an initially undistorted nematic liquid crystal. By using the dyad representation Q(ij), we find the retarded and nonlocal equation for the nematic configuration and solve it in Fourier space. This allows us to calculate the amplitude dependent dispersion relation for a nematic liquid crystal in a given initial undistorted stationary state. We consider a linearly polarized wave packet that travels along the principal axis of the nematic dielectric tensor. We find a nonlinear Schrodinger equation for the amplitude, which includes an additional …


Pattern Formation In Non-Newtonian Hele-Shaw Flow, P. Fast, L. Kondic, M. J. Shelley, Peter Palffy-Muhoray Oct 2013

Pattern Formation In Non-Newtonian Hele-Shaw Flow, P. Fast, L. Kondic, M. J. Shelley, Peter Palffy-Muhoray

Peter Palffy-Muhoray

We study theoretically the Saffman-Taylor instability of an air bubble expanding into a non-Newtonian fluid in a Hele-Shaw cell, with the motivation of understanding suppression of tip-splitting and the formation of dendritic structures observed in the flow of complex fluids, such as polymeric liquids or liquid crystals. A standard visco-elastic flow model is simplified in the case of flow in a thin gap, and it is found that there is a distinguished limit where shear thinning and normal stress differences are apparent, but elastic response is negligible. This observation allows formulation of a generalized Darcy's law, where the pressure satisfies …


Nonphotochemical Laser-Induced Nucleation Of Nematic Phase And Alignment Of Nematic Director From A Supercooled Thermotropic Liquid Crystal, Xiaoying Sun, Bruce A. Garetz, Michele F. Moreira, Peter Palffy-Muhoray Oct 2013

Nonphotochemical Laser-Induced Nucleation Of Nematic Phase And Alignment Of Nematic Director From A Supercooled Thermotropic Liquid Crystal, Xiaoying Sun, Bruce A. Garetz, Michele F. Moreira, Peter Palffy-Muhoray

Peter Palffy-Muhoray

A nonphotochemical laser-induced phase transition was studied in a supercooled 4′‐n-pentyl-4-cyanobiphenyl (5CB, also referred to as PCB and K15) liquid crystal, using linearly polarized 45 ps light pulses at a wavelength of 532 nm. The laser induced nucleation from the metastable supercooled isotropic phase to the nematic phase during slow cooling (0.001 °C∕min) and high light intensity (3.9 MW∕cm2). The resulting nematic director tended to be aligned along the direction of the plane of polarization of the light. At the intensities used, there is no observable laser-induced realignment of the director once the sample is in the nematic …


Cholesteric Liquid-Crystal Laser As An Optic Fiber-Based Temperature Sensor, M. F. Moreira, I.C.S. Carvalho, W. Cao, C. Bailey, Bahman Taheri, Peter Palffy-Muhoray Oct 2013

Cholesteric Liquid-Crystal Laser As An Optic Fiber-Based Temperature Sensor, M. F. Moreira, I.C.S. Carvalho, W. Cao, C. Bailey, Bahman Taheri, Peter Palffy-Muhoray

Peter Palffy-Muhoray

In this work, we have studied the temperature dependence of a cholesteric liquid-crystal laser coupled to an optical fiber, with a view towards optical fiber sensor applications. To stabilize the laser emission, we developed a procedure to align the liquid crystal placed in the fiber. Unexpected oscillations in the laser emission were observed as the temperature was varied, which can be understood in terms of the competition between bulk and surface anchoring torques. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.


Distance Of Closest Approach Of Two Arbitrary Hard Ellipses In Two Dimensions, Xiaoyu Zheng, Peter Palffy-Muhoray Oct 2013

Distance Of Closest Approach Of Two Arbitrary Hard Ellipses In Two Dimensions, Xiaoyu Zheng, Peter Palffy-Muhoray

Peter Palffy-Muhoray

The distance of closest approach of hard particles is a key parameter of their interaction and plays an important role in the resulting phase behavior. For nonspherical particles, the distance of closest approach depends on orientation, and its calculation is surprisingly difficult. Although overlap criteria have been developed for use in computer simulations [ Vieillard-Baron J. Chem. Phys. 56 4729 (1972); Perram and Wertheim J. Comput. Phys. 58 409 (1985)], no analytic solutions have been obtained for the distance of closest approach of ellipsoids in three dimensions, or, until now, for ellipses in two dimensions. We have derived an analytic …


Analytical Solution Of Maxwell's Equations In Lossy And Optically Active Crystals, Haijun Yuan, E. Weinan, Peter Palffy-Muhoray Oct 2013

Analytical Solution Of Maxwell's Equations In Lossy And Optically Active Crystals, Haijun Yuan, E. Weinan, Peter Palffy-Muhoray

Peter Palffy-Muhoray

Analytical solution of Maxwell's equations is obtained for general linear optical materials: lossy and optically active crystals. Explicit expressions are obtained for the dispersion relation and the propagating eigenmodes. In general, four rather than two distinct modes are present. The results are useful in describing light propagation in optically complex media.