Event

Abstract: Active liquid crystals have become a canonical example of active matter due to the many experimental realizations, theoretical studies, and they're promise to be a pathway to programmable and controllable materials. I will describe some recent developments in which the critical temperature of mixtures of active liquid crystals and equilibrium materials can be controlled with activity, i.e. the temperature at which the system transitions from uniform mixed states to phase separated states can be controlled by changing the strength of the active stresses. This happens as the turbulent flows created by the active nematic provide a self-stirring force, capable of stabilising a uniform state below the critical temperature. I will also introduce the dynamics of the interface of such a system in its phase separated state, which gives information about the kind of arrested phase separation the systems display in its coexistence region, as well as how we can expect structures to coarsen over time.