Related papers: Effect of particle geometry on phase transitions i…
We extend our previous work on monolayers of uniaxial particles [J. Chem. Phys. 140, 204906 (2014)] to study the effect of particle biaxiality on the phase behavior of liquid-crystal monolayers. Particles are modelled as board-like hard…
Using scaled-particle theory for binary mixtures of two-dimensional hard particles with rotational freedom, we analyse the stability of nematic phases and the demixing phase behaviour of a variety of mixtures, focussing on cases where at…
Orientational and positional ordering properties of liquid crystal monolayers are examined by means of Fundamental-Measure Density Functional Theory. Particles forming the monolayer are modeled as hard parallelepipeds of square section of…
Using the classical density functional theory of freezing and Monte Carlo computer simulations, we explore the liquid-crystalline phase behavior of hard rectangles on flat and cylindrical manifolds. Moreover, we study the effect of a static…
Liquid crystals consisting of biaxial particles can exhibit a much richer phase behavior than their uniaxial counterparts. Usually, one has to rely on simulation results to understand the phase diagram of these systems, since very few…
We use density-functional theory, of the fundamental-measure type, to study the relative stability of the biaxial nematic phase, with respect to non-uniform phases such as smectic and columnar, in fluids made of hard board-like particles…
We introduce a model for a fluid of polydisperse rounded hard rectangles where the length and width of the rectangular core are fixed, while the roundness is taken into account by the convex envelope of a disk displaced along the perimeter…
Scaled particle theory for a binary mixture of hard discorectangles and for a binary mixture of hard rectangles is used to predict possible liquid-crystal demixing scenarios in two dimensions. Through a bifurcation analysis from the…
We analyze the sedimentation behavior of a polydisperse two-dimensional liquid-crystal fluid using a local density functional theory based on scaled particle theory. Polydispersity is incorporated through variations in the roundness of hard…
We have calculated the phase diagrams of one--component fluids made of five types of biaxial particles differing in their cross sections. The orientation of the principal particle axis is fixed in space, while the second axis is allowed to…
Inspired by the observations of a remarkably stable biaxial nematic phase [E.v.d. Pol et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 258301 (2009)], we investigate the effect of size polydispersity on the phase behavior of a suspension of boardlike…
We investigate fluids of dipolar hard particles by a certain variant of density-functional theory. The proper treatment of the long range of the dipolar interactions yields a contribution to the free energy which favors ferromagnetic order.…
We used the Density Functional formalism, in particular the Scaled Particle Theory, applied to a length-polydisperse hard-rectangular fluid to study its phase behavior as a function of the mean particle aspect ratio ($\kappa_0$) and…
We numerically investigate two-dimensional systems of hard rectangles at constant pressure through extensive hard-particle Monte Carlo simulations. We determine the complete phase diagram as a function of packing fraction and aspect ratio,…
Partially phase-separated liquid-crystal/polymer dispersions display highly fibrillar domain morphologies that are dramatically different from the typical structures found in isotropic mixtures. To explain this, we numerically explore the…
We theoretically study the phase behaviour of monolayers of hard rod-plate mixtures using a fundamental-measure density functional in the restricted-orientation (Zwanzig) approximation. We consider both species to be subject to an…
Present work is a theoretical study on the stability of the thermotropic biaxial nematic liquid crystal phase in model systems. Its main aim is to present the phase diagrams of spatially uniform liquid mesophases and to identify the…
We study an experimental system of hard granular squares in two dimensions, energized by vibration. The interplay of order in the orientations and positions of anisotropic particles allows for a rich set of phases. We measure the structure…
Both uniaxial and biaxial nematic liquid crystals are defined by orientational ordering of their building blocks. While uniaxial nematics only orient the long molecular axis, biaxial order implies local order along three axes. As the…
The implications of soft `patchy' interactions on the orientational disorder-order transition of strongly elongated colloidal rods and flat disks is studied within a simple Onsager-van der Waals density functional theory. The theory…