Liquid crystal based active electrocaloric regenerator.

The active electrocaloric (EC) regenerator exploiting electric conversion into thermal energy has recently become important for developing a new generation of heat-management devices. We analyze an active EC regenerator numerically. We establish a temperature span across the regenerator by commuting a liquid crystalline (LC) unit between regions with and without an external electric field .

Computational studies of history dependence in nematic liquid crystals in random environments.

Glassy liquid crystalline systems are expected to show significant history-dependent effects. Two model glassy systems are the RAN and SSS (sprinkled silica spin) lattice models. The RAN model is a Lebwohl-Lasher lattice model with locally coupled nematic spins, together with uncorrelated random anisotropy fields at each site, while the SSS model has a finite concentration of impurity spins frozen in random directions.

Symmetry breaking and structure of a mixture of nematic liquid crystals and anisotropic nanoparticles.

Orientational ordering of a homogeneous mixture of uniaxial liquid crystalline (LC) molecules and magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) is studied using the Lebwohl-Lasher lattice model. We consider cases where NPs tend to be oriented perpendicularly to LC molecules due to elastic forces. We study domain-type configurations of ensembles, which are quenched from the isotropic phase.

Competition between local disordering and global ordering fields in nematic liquid crystals.

We study the influence of external electric or magnetic field B on orientational ordering of nematic liquid crystals or of other rod-like objects (e.g. nanotubes immersed in a liquid) in the presence of random anisotropy field type of disorder.

Defect-enhanced nematic surface order reconstruction.

Within the Landau-de Gennes phenomenological theory, we study the influence of an applied electric field with average strength E{a} on the position of a nematic line defect with topological charge M=+/-1/2 in a hybrid cell. We explore the biaxial structure of the defect core and we describe its expulsion from the cell upon increasing E{a}. We show that prior to the expulsion the defect core displays dramatic changes for strong enough surface anchorings.