Surface anchoring on layers of grafted liquid-crystalline chain molecules: A computer simulation
Materials Science
2009-11-07 v1 Soft Condensed Matter
Abstract
By Monte Carlo simulations of a soft ellipsoid model for liquid crystals, we study whether a layer of grafted liquid-crystalline chain molecules can induce tilt in a nematic fluid. The chains are fairly short (four monomers) and made of the same particles as the solvent. They are attached to a substrate which favors parallel (planar) alignment. At low grafting densities, the substrate dominates and we observe planar alignment. On increasing the grafting density, we find a first order transition from planar to tilted alignment. Beyond the transition, the tilt angle with respect to the surface normal decreases continuously. The range of accessible anchoring angles is quite large.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0205324,
title = {Surface anchoring on layers of grafted liquid-crystalline chain molecules: A computer simulation},
author = {Harald Lange and Friederike Schmid},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0205324},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
To appear in J. Chem. Phys