Entropy-driven enhanced self-diffusion in confined reentrant supernematics
Abstract
We present a molecular dynamics study of reentrant nematic phases using the Gay-Berne-Kihara model of a liquid crystal in nanoconfinement. At densities above those characteristic of smectic A phases, reentrant nematic phases form that are characterized by a large value of the nematic order parameter . Along the nematic director these "supernematic" phases exhibit a remarkably high self-diffusivity which exceeds that for ordinary, lower-density nematic phases by an order of magnitude. Enhancement of self-diffusivity is attributed to a decrease of rotational configurational entropy in confinement. Recent developments in the pulsed field gradient NMR technique are shown to provide favorable conditions for an experimental confirmation of our simulations.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1011.0147,
title = {Entropy-driven enhanced self-diffusion in confined reentrant supernematics},
author = {Marco G. Mazza and Manuel Greschek and Rustem Valiullin and Jörg Kärger and Martin Schoen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1011.0147},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
10 pages, 5 figures