Confinement Controls the Bend Instability of Three-Dimensional Active Liquid Crystals

Spontaneous growth of long-wavelength deformations is a defining feature of active liquid crystals. We investigate the effect of confinement on the instability of 3D active liquid crystals in the isotropic phase composed of extensile microtubule bundles and kinesin molecular motors. When shear align...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2020-12, Vol.125 (25), p.257801-257801, Article 257801
Main Authors: Chandrakar, Pooja, Varghese, Minu, Aghvami, S Ali, Baskaran, Aparna, Dogic, Zvonimir, Duclos, Guillaume
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Active matter
Active nematics
BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Biological fluid dynamics
Biological materials
Biomimetic & bio-inspired materials
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
Computational fluid dynamics
Confinement
Control stability
Crystal growth
Elastic deformation
Liquid crystals
Molecular motors
Physics
Self-organization
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Summary:Spontaneous growth of long-wavelength deformations is a defining feature of active liquid crystals. We investigate the effect of confinement on the instability of 3D active liquid crystals in the isotropic phase composed of extensile microtubule bundles and kinesin molecular motors. When shear aligned, such fluids exhibit finite-wavelength self-amplifying bend deformations. By systematically changing the channel size we elucidate how the instability wavelength and its growth rate depend on the channel dimensions. Experimental findings are qualitatively consistent with a minimal hydrodynamic model, where the fastest growing deformation is set by a balance of active driving and elastic relaxation. Our results demonstrate that confinement determines the structure and dynamics of active fluids on all experimentally accessible length scales.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.257801