Orientational order of motile defects in active nematics.

ABSTRACT: The study of liquid crystals at equilibrium has led to fundamental insights into the nature of ordered materials, as well as to practical applications such as display technologies. Active nematics are a fundamentally different class of liquid crystals, driven away from equilibrium by the autonomous motion of their constituent rod-like particles. This internally generated activity powers the continuous creation and annihilation of topological defects, which leads to complex streaming flows whose chaotic dynamics seem to destroy long-range order. Here, we study these dynamics in experimental and computational realizations of active nematics. By tracking thousands of defects over centimetre-scale distances in microtubule-based active nematics, we identify a non-equilibrium phase characterized

SUBMITTER: DeCamp SJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4894651 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature