https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2019-11798-6
Regular Article
Influence of tetrahedral order on ferromagnetic gel phases
1
Department of Physics, University of Bayreuth, 95440, Bayreuth, Germany
2
Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, 55021, Mainz, Germany
* e-mail: tilen.potisk@uni-bayreuth.de
** e-mail: pleiner@mpip-mainz.mpg.de
Received:
10
January
2019
Accepted:
15
February
2019
Published online:
25
March
2019
We investigate the macroscopic dynamics of gels with tetrahedral/octupolar symmetry, which possess in addition a spontaneous permanent magnetization. We derive the corresponding static and dynamic macroscopic equations for a phase, where the magnetization is parallel to one of the improper fourfold tetrahedral symmetry axes. Apart from elastic strains, we take into account relative rotations between the magnetization and the elastic network. The influence of tetrahedral order on these degrees of freedom is investigated and some experiments are proposed that are specific for such a material and allow to indirectly detect tetrahedral order. We also consider the case of a transient network and predict that stationary elastic shear stresses arise when a temperature gradient is applied.
Key words: Soft Matter: Liquid crystals
© The Author(s), 2019
