Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 5, 2025

Microfluidic Preparation of Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Actuators
Published on: May 20, 2018
Liquid crystals on deformable surfaces
Ingo Nitschke1, Sebastian Reuther1, Axel Voigt1,2,3
1Institute of Scientific Computing, TU Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany.
Abstract:
Liquid crystals with molecules constrained to the tangent bundle of a curved surface show interesting phenomena resulting from the tight coupling of the elastic and bulk-free energies of the liquid crystal with geometric properties of the surface. We derive a thermodynamically consistent Landau-de Gennes-Helfrich model which considers the simultaneous relaxation of the Q-tensor field and the surface. The resulting system of tensor-valued surface partial differential equation and geometric evolution laws is numerically solved to tackle the rich dynamics of this system and to compute the resulting equilibrium shape. The results strongly depend on the intrinsic and extrinsic curvature contributions and lead to unexpected asymmetric shapes.
Related Concept Videos
Surface Tension of Fluid
Surface tension varies...
Surface Tension, Capillary Action, and Viscosity
The various IMFs between identical molecules of a substance are examples of cohesive forces. The molecules within a liquid are surrounded by other molecules and are attracted equally in all directions by the cohesive forces within the liquid. However, the molecules on the surface of a liquid are attracted only by about one-half as many molecules. Because of the unbalanced molecular attractions on the surface molecules, liquids contract to form a shape that minimizes the number...
Polymer Classification: Crystallinity
Crystalline domains are the regions where polymer chains are aligned in an orderly manner and held together in proximity by intermolecular forces. For example, chains in the crystalline domains of polyethylene and nylon are bound together by van der Waals...
The Fluid Mosaic Model
Phase Transitions: Melting and Freezing
Phase Transitions: Vaporization and Condensation

