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Updated: Oct 3, 2025

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Nematic liquid crystalline elastomers are aeolotropic materials
L Angela Mihai1, Haoran Wang2, Johann Guilleminot3
1School of Mathematics, Cardiff University, Senghennydd Road, Cardiff CF24 4AG, UK.
Abstract:
Continuum models describing ideal nematic solids are widely used in theoretical studies of liquid crystal elastomers. However, experiments on nematic elastomers show a type of anisotropic response that is not predicted by the ideal models. Therefore, their description requires an additional term coupling elastic and nematic responses, to account for aeolotropic effects. In order to better understand the observed elastic response of liquid crystal elastomers, we analyse theoretically and computationally different stretch and shear deformations. We then compare the elastic moduli in the infinitesimal elastic strain limit obtained from the molecular dynamics simulations with the ones derived theoretically, and show that they are better explained by including nematic order effects within the continuum framework.
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