Simulating Phase Transitions in Binary Liquid Crystal Films


R. LUKAC and F.J.VESELY
Computational Physics Group,
Institute of Experimental Physics,
University of Vienna, Strudlhofgasse 4,
A-1090 Vienna,
E-mail: Renato.Lukac@ap.univie.ac.at and Franz.Vesely@ap.univie.ac.at

Liquid crystals are often subject to external orienting forces, arising either from applied fields or from surface anchoring. The molecular simulation of such systems is an important step towards the prediction of real LC behavior. Recently some progress has been made regarding the simulation of LC models, both in confined spaces (slabs, films) and under the influence of aligning torques.

We present MC and MD simulations of Gay-Berne (ellipsoidal) model particles, both pure and mixed, with an orienting potential coupling to the director of the sample. The strength of the aligning potential on may vary in space, so that both an applied field or an "anchoring torque" can be represented.

Simulations were performed in 3 dimensions. The results are presented both as structure visualizations and in the form of various correlation functions.

$[1]$ J.G.Gay and B.J.Berne, J.Chem.Phys., 74, 3316 (1981).
$[2]$ Vesely, F. J., Confined director dynamics in the simulation of nematics (to be pub.).
$[3]$ R.Lukac and F.J.Vesely, Posters at ECLC'97 Zakopane and ILCC'98 Strasbourg.
$[4]$ S. J. Mills, C. M. Care, M. P. Neal and D. J. Cleaver, Phys. Rev. E, 58, (1998).
$[5]$ G. D. Wall and D. J. Cleaver, Phys. Rev. E, 56, 4306 (1997).
$[6]$ T. Gruhn and M. Schoen, Mol. Phys., 93, 681 (1998).
$[7]$ T. Gruhn and M. Schoen, J. Chem. Phys., 108, 9124 (1998).

About this document ...

This document was generated using the LaTeX2HTML translator Version 99.1 release (March 30, 1999)

Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, Nikos Drakos, Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds.
Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, Ross Moore, Mathematics Department, Macquarie University, Sydney.

The command line arguments were:
latex2html -split 0 -no_navigation -white eclc99ab.tex

The translation was initiated by Renato Lukac on 1999-10-24