Varsha Banerjee : Pattern Dynamics in Living Liquid Crystals

An amalgam of active matter (AM) and nematic liquid crystals (LCs), referred to as living liquid crystals (LLCs), is a promising self-healing material with futuristic applications for targeted delivery of information and micro-cargo.
We provide a phenomenological model to study the symbiotic pattern dynamics in this contemporary system using the Toner-Tu model for AM, the Landau-de Gennes free energy for LCs, and an experimentally motivated coupling term that favours co-alignment of the active and nematic components. Our extensive theoretical studies unfold novel steady states, chimeras and solitons, with sharp regions of distinct orientational order that sweep through the coupled system in synchrony. The symbiotic dynamics of the AM and LC components can tailor and manipulate order in an otherwise disordered system. Further, by imposing surface-directed conditions, we show that the AM-LC coupling can be exploited to yield controlled pattern dynamics in the LLCs.

1.    “Ferronematics and Living Liquid Crystals”,
Aditya Vats, Varsha Banerjee and Sanjay Puri,
Research monograph in Springer Briefs in Physics (2025). Soft Cover ISBN 978-3-031-87798-8 https://link.springer.com/book/9783031877988

2.    “Surface Directed Dynamics in Living Liquid Crystals”,
Aditya Vats, Sanjay Puri and Varsha Banerjee,
Physical Review E 110, 034701 (2024).

3.    “Symbiotic Dynamics in Living Liquid Crystals”,
Aditya Vats, Pradeep Kumar Yadav, Varsha Banerjee and Sanjay Puri.
Physical Review E, 108, 024701 (2023).