Liquid crystalline phases and demixing in binary mixtures of shape-anisometric colloids

TL;DR

This paper develops a theoretical lattice model for binary mixtures of shape-anisometric colloids, predicting complex liquid crystalline phases and demixing behaviors relevant to colloidal and biological systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel lattice-based theoretical framework to analyze phase behavior in mixtures of rod-like, plate-like, and spherical particles.

Findings

Rich phase diagrams with isotropic, nematic, lamellar, and columnar phases

Demixing into same or different symmetry phases

Structural microsegregation within phases

Abstract

A theoretical model of shape-anisometric particles embedded in a cubic lattice is formulated for binary mixtures combining rod-like, plate-like and spherical particles. The model aims at providing a tool for the prediction and interpretation of complex phase behavior in a variety of liquid crystalline colloids, biological and macromolecular systems. Introducing just repulsive interactions among the particles, a rich variety of phase structures and multiphasic equilibria is obtained, including isotropic, nematic, lamellar and columnar phases, demixing into phases of the same or different symmetries and structural microsegregation of the different species of the mixture within the same phase.