Nematic-nematic demixing in polydisperse thermotropic liquid crystals
Abstract
We consider the effects of polydispersity on isotropic-nematic phase equilibria in thermotropic liquid crystals, using a Maier-Saupe theory with factorized interactions. A sufficient spread (approx. 50%) in the interaction strengths of the particles leads to phase separation into two or more nematic phases, which can in addition coexist with an isotropic phase. The isotropic-nematic coexistence region widens dramatically as polydispersity is increased, leading to re-entrant isotropic-nematic phase separation in some regions of the phase diagram. We show that similar phenomena will occur also for non-factorized interactions as long as the interaction strength between any two particle species is lower than the mean of the intra-species interactions.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0501421,
title = {Nematic-nematic demixing in polydisperse thermotropic liquid crystals},
author = {Peter Sollich},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0501421},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
6 pages, revtex4, 4 figures included