Phase behavior of the Confined Lebwohl-Lasher Model

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the phase transition behavior of nematic liquid crystals modeled by Lebwohl-Lasher changes when confined between planar slits of varying widths, bridging the gap between 2D and 3D systems.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the critical slit width at which the phase transition shifts from continuous to discontinuous in confined Lebwohl-Lasher models.

Findings

Identifies the critical thickness for transition change.

Shows the transition nature varies with slit width.

Compares confined system behavior with pure 2D and 3D models.

Abstract

The phase behavior of confined nematogens is studied using the Lebwohl-Lasher model. For three dimensional systems the model is known to exhibit a discontinuous nematic-isotropic phase transition, whereas the corresponding two dimensional systems apparently show a continuous Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless like transition. In this paper we study the phase transitions of the Lebwohl-Lasher model when confined between planar slits of different widths in order to establish the behavior of intermediate situations between the pure planar model and the three-dimensional system, and compare with previous estimates for the critical thickness, i.e. the slit width at which the transition switches from continuous to discontinuous.