Anchoring effects at the isotropic-nematic interface in liquid crystals

TL;DR

This paper investigates the anchoring effects at the isotropic-nematic interface in liquid crystals through simulations, introducing a lattice model and measuring interfacial tension dependence on anchoring angles, revealing stable and metastable states.

Contribution

It presents a new simulation method for measuring angle-dependent interfacial tension and introduces a lattice model to study anchoring effects in liquid crystals.

Findings

g(theta) varies with pair interaction in the lattice model

Both stable and metastable anchoring angles are observed in the lattice model

Only one stable anchoring angle is found for soft rods, aligning with theoretical predictions

Abstract

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 the interface. In addition, an alternative liquid crystal model is introduced, defined on a lattice. The advantage of the lattice model is that accurate simulations of anchoring effects become possible. For the lattice model, g(theta) depends sensitively on the nearest-neighbor pair interaction, and both stable and metastable anchoring angles can be detected. We also measure g(theta) for an off-lattice fluid of soft rods. For soft rods, only one stable anchoring angle is found, corresponding to homogeneous alignment of the nematic director in the plane of the interface. This finding is in agreement with most theoretical predictions obtained for hard rods.