Fluctuating nematic elastomer membranes

Fluctuating Nematic Elastomer Membranes: a New Universality Class

We study the flat phase of nematic elastomer membranes with rotational symmetry spontaneously broken by in-plane nematic order. Such state is characterized by a vanishing elastic modulus for simple shear and soft transverse phonons. At harmonic level, in-plane orientational (nematic) order is stable to thermal fluctuations, that lead to short-range in-plane translational (phonon) correlations. ...

Nematic elastomer actuators

In this seminar, the liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) and their building blocks – liquid crystals and polymers are presented. The specific rod-like molecular shape of liquid crystals forces LCEs to form a special molecular distribution of the underlying polymer network. This allows them expand up to 400 % with temperature, which could be used in applications. The physics of this spontaneous dis...

Shape selection of twist-nematic-elastomer ribbons.

How microscopic chirality is reflected in macroscopic scale to form various chiral shapes, such as straight helicoids and spiral ribbons, and how the degree of macroscopic chirality can be controlled are a focus of studies on the shape formation of many biomaterials and supramolecular systems. This article investigates both experimentally and theoretically how the chiral arrangement of liquid c...

Geometry of thin nematic elastomer sheets.

A thin sheet of nematic elastomer attains 3D configurations depending on the nematic director field upon heating. In this Letter, we describe the intrinsic geometry of such a sheet and derive an expression for the metric induced by general nematic director fields. Furthermore, we investigate the reverse problem of constructing a director field that induces a specified 2D geometry. We provide an...

Electro-Optical Study of Nematic Elastomer Gels