Depletion-induced biaxial nematic states of boardlike particles
With the aim of investigating the stability conditions of biaxial nematic liquid crystals, we study the effect of adding a non-adsorbing ideal depletant on the phase behavior of colloidal hard boardlike particles. We take into account the presence of the depletant by introducing an effective depleti...
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Published in | Journal of physics. Condensed matter Vol. 24; no. 28; p. 284128 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Journal Article Conference Proceeding |
Language | English |
Published |
Bristol
IOP Publishing
18.07.2012
Institute of Physics |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | With the aim of investigating the stability conditions of biaxial nematic liquid crystals, we study the effect of adding a non-adsorbing ideal depletant on the phase behavior of colloidal hard boardlike particles. We take into account the presence of the depletant by introducing an effective depletion attraction between a pair of boardlike particles. At fixed depletant fugacity, the stable liquid-crystal phase is determined through a mean-field theory with restricted orientations. Interestingly, we predict that for slightly elongated boardlike particles a critical depletant density exists, where the system undergoes a direct transition from an isotropic liquid to a biaxial nematic phase. As a consequence, by tuning the depletant density, an easy experimental control parameter, one can stabilize states of high biaxial nematic order even when these states are unstable for pure systems of boardlike particles. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0953-8984 1361-648X |
DOI: | 10.1088/0953-8984/24/28/284128 |