Simulation of Gay-Berne liquid crystal molecules confined to a plane

Kundu, Pallabi; Mishra, Pankaj

doi:10.1063/5.0001132

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Despite serving as a point of reference for 3D phenomena, the phase behavior of a strictly 2D thermotropic GB LC system has been limited [113,114]. On the experimental front, optical microscopy commonly provides information on quasi-2D samples, and in most cases, data merely reflect 2D projections of an underlying 3D system [56,115].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bidimensional Gay-Berne Calamitic Fluid: Structure and Phase Behavior in Bulk and Strongly Confined Systems

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A bidimensional (2D) thermotropic liquid crystal (LC) is investigated with Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. The Gay-Berne mesogen with parameterization GB(3, 5, 2, 1) is used to model a calamitic system. Spatial orientation of the LC samples is probed with the nematic order parameter: a sharp isotropic-smectic (I-Sm) transition is observed at lower pressures. At higher pressures, the I-Sm transition involves an intermediate nematic phase. Topology of the orthobaric phase diagram for the 2D case differs from the 3D case in two important respects: 1) the nematic region appears at lower temperatures and slightly lower densities, and 2) the critical point occurs at lower temperature and slightly higher density. The 2D calamitic model is used to probe the structural behavior of LC samples under strong confinement when either planar or homeotropic anchoring prevails. Samples subjected to circular, square, and triangular boundaries are gradually cooled to study how orientational order emerges. Depending on anchoring mode and confining geometry, characteristic topological defects emerge. Textures in these systems are similar to those observed in experiments and simulations of lyotropic LCs.

show abstract