Morphological transitions in liquid crystal nanodroplets
- 11 July 2012
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in Soft Matter
- Vol. 8 (33), 8679-8689
- https://doi.org/10.1039/c2sm25383f
Abstract
A continuum theory is used to study ordering in liquid crystal nanodroplets. The free energy functional that describes the system is minimized using an Euler–Lagrange approach and an unsymmetric radial basis function method. The equilibrium morphology in nanodroplets is shown to represent a delicate balance between bulk and surface contributions; when the radius of the droplet reaches a critical value, that balance is altered and the droplet undergoes a transition. By controlling the anchoring conditions at the droplet's surface, one can control the radius where the transition occurs and even prepare metastable droplets where small perturbations can trigger a morphological transition. The results of the theory are shown to be consistent with recent experimental observations on monodisperse nematic liquid crystal nanodroplets.Keywords
This publication has 116 references indexed in Scilit:
- Liquid Crystal Mediated Interactions Between Nanoparticles in a Nematic PhaseLangmuir, 2012
- Three-dimensional colloidal crystals in liquid crystalline blue phasesProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011
- Recent Advances in Colloidal and Interfacial Phenomena Involving Liquid CrystalsLangmuir, 2010
- Principles for Manipulation of the Lateral Organization of Aqueous-Soluble Surface-Active Molecules at the Liquid Crystal−Aqueous InterfaceLangmuir, 2009
- Bracket formulation of nonequilibrium thermodynamics for systems interacting with the environmentJournal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 2008
- Topological defects in dispersed words and worlds around liquid crystals, or liquid crystal dropsLiquid Crystals, 1998
- Computer simulations of nematic droplets with bipolar boundary conditionsPhysical Review E, 1994
- Disorientation-induced disordering at a nematic-liquid-crystal–solid interfacePhysical Review A, 1992
- Continuous Nematic-Isotropic Transition in Submicron-Size Liquid-Crystal DropletsPhysical Review Letters, 1988
- Phenomenology of short-range-order effects in the isotropic phase of nematic materialsPhysics Letters A, 1969