Mutual Diffusion of Inclusions in Freely-Suspended Smectic Liquid Crystal Films

ORAL

Abstract

We study experimentally and theoretically the hydrodynamic interaction of pairs of circular inclusions in two-dimensional, fluid smectic membranes suspended in air. By analyzing their Brownian motion, we find that the radial mutual mobilities of identical inclusions are independent of their size but that the angular coupling becomes strongly size-dependent when their radius exceeds a characteristic hydrodynamic length. The observed dependence of the mutual mobilities on inclusion size is described well for arbitrary separations by a model that generalizes the Levine/MacKintosh theory of point-force response functions and uses a boundary-element approach to calculate the mobility matrix.

*This work was supported by NASA Grant NNX-13AQ81G and NSF MRSEC Grant DMR-0820579 (University of Colorado), and by NSF Grant CBET-0854108 (Brown University).

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Authors

  • Tatiana Kuriabova

    • Brown University

  • Zhiyuan Qi

    • University of Colorado

  • Zoom Nguyen

    • University of Colorado

  • Cheol Park

    • Department of Physics and Liquid Crystal Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder
    • University of Colorado

  • Matthew Glaser

    • Univ of Colorado - Boulder
    • University of Colorado

  • Joseph Maclennan

    • University of Colorado

  • Noel Clark

    • Liquid Crystal Materials Research Center, University of Colorado
    • Department of Physics and Liquid Crystal Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
    • Liquid Crystal Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder (CO) U.S.A.
    • Department of Physics, and the Liquid Crystal Materials Research Center, University of Colorado at Boulder
    • University of Colorado

  • Thomas Powers

    • Brown University