Related papers: External and intrinsic anchoring in nematic liquid…
Monte Carlo simulation, experiment and continuum theory are used to examine the anchoring exhibited by a nematic liquid crystal at a patterned substrate comprising a periodic array of rectangles that, respectively, promote vertical and…
The confining effect of a spherical substrate inducing anchoring (normal to the surface) of rod-like liquid crystal molecules contained in a thin film spread over it has been investigated with regard to possible changes in the nature of the…
The isotropic-to-nematic transition in liquid crystals is studied in d=3 spatial dimensions. A simulation method is proposed to measure the angle dependent interfacial tension g(theta), with theta the anchoring angle of the nematic phase at…
Nematic liquid crystals confined to geometrically as well as chemically patterned substrate on one end and a flat substrate with strong anchoring on the other is studied using non-Boltzmann Monte Carlo methods. We observe significant…
We present a Monte Carlo study of the surface anchoring of a nematic fluid on swollen layers of grafted liquid crystalline chain molecules. The liquid crystalline particles are modeled by soft repulsive ellipsoids, and the chains are made…
We present Monte Carlo simulations of liquid-crystalline material confined to a nanoscopic slit-pore. The simulations are carried out under isothermal conditions in a specialized isostress ensemble in which N fluid molecules are exposed to…
We propose a lattice model to simulate the influence of porous medium on the Nematic - Isotropic transition of liquid crystal confined to the pores. The effects of pore size and pore connectivity are modelled through a disorder parameter.…
We propose a simple and reliable method to measure the liquid crystal surface anchoring strength by molecular simulation. The method is based on the measurement of the long-range fluctuation modes of the director in confined geometry. As an…
We derive a mathematical model of a nematic electrolyte based on a variational formulation of nematodynamics. Extending our previous work, we consider a general setup which incorporates dielectric anisotropy of the liquid-crystalline matrix…
A theoretical analysis is presented of a nematic liquid crystal confined between substrates pat- terned with squares that promote vertical and planar alignment. Two approaches are used to eluci- date the behavior across a wide range of…
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…
Nematic liquid crystals at rough and fluctuating interfaces are analyzed within the Frank elastic theory and the Landau-de Gennes theory. We study specifically interfaces that locally favor planar anchoring. In the first part we reconsider…
We study the effect of fluctuations in opening angle of bent-core molecules on stability of the nematic phases. The molecules are built out of two Gay-Berne centers of $\kappa = 4$, $\kappa ' = 5$, $\mu = 1$ and $\nu = 2$, each…
The effect of surface roughness on the structure of liquid crystalline fluids near solid substrates is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. The liquid crystal is modelled as a fluid of soft ellipsoidal molecules and the substrate is modelled…
We carry out Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the effect of molecular shape on liquid-crystal order. In our approach, each model mesogen consists of several soft spheres bonded rigidly together. The arrangement of the spheres may be…
Combining molecular simulation, Onsager theory and the elastic description of nematic liquid crystals, we study the dependence of the nematic liquid crystal elastic constants and the zenithal surface anchoring coefficient on the value of…
Activity in nematics drives interfacial flows that lead to preferential alignment that is tangential or planar for extensile systems (pushers) and perpendicular or homeotropic for contractile ones (pullers). This alignment is known as…
We report the results of Monte Carlo simulations of the Lebwohl--Lasher model of nematic liquid crystals confined to cylindrical cavities with homeotropic anchoring. We show that the ratio of the bulk to surface couplings is not in general…
In this study, we implement the deviatoric curvature model to examine dynamically triangulated surfaces with anisotropic membrane inclusions. The Monte-Carlo numerical scheme is devised to not only minimize the total bending energy of the…
A nematic liquid crystal in contact with a grating surface possessing an alternating stripe pattern of locally homeotropic and planar anchoring is studied within the Frank--Oseen model. The combination of both chemical and geometrical…