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Samo Kralj from the Department of Condensed Matter Physics F5 and colleagues from The Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Ljubljana have published an article in the journal Nanomaterials. They numerically studied localized elastic distortions in curved, effectively two-dimensional nematic shells using a mesoscopic Helfrich-Landau-de Gennes-type approach. They limited our theoretical consideration to axially symmetric shapes. They determined conditions for which nonsingular line-like localized nematic distortions could appear enabled by order reconstruction mechanism.

Young researcher Maha Zid has with collaborators theoretically studied the generic mechanisms that could establish critical behavior in nematic liquid crystals (NLCs). The corresponding free energy density terms should exhibit linear coupling with the nematic order parameter and, via this coupling, enhance the nematic order. They consider both temperature- and pressure-driven, order–disorder phase transitions. They derive a scaled effective free energy expression that describes how qualitatively different mechanisms enforce critical behavior.  Main focus is devoted on the impact of nanoparticles (NPs) in homogeneous NP-NLC mixtures. They illustrate that in the case of pressure-driven phase changes, lower concentrations are needed to impose critical point conditions in comparison with pure temperature variations.