Biaxial nematic phase stability and demixing behaviour in monolayers of rod-plate mixtures

TL;DR

This paper theoretically investigates the phase behavior of monolayers of rod-plate mixtures, revealing complex phase transitions, demixing phenomena, and the influence of adsorption strengths on nematic phases.

Contribution

It introduces a fundamental-measure density functional approach to analyze phase stability and demixing in rod-plate monolayers with varying adsorption strengths and aspect ratios.

Findings

Second-order uniaxial to biaxial nematic transition at low adsorption.

Demixing into plate-rich and rod-rich phases at high adsorption strengths.

Presence of tricritical points and first-order phase transitions at high pressures.

Abstract

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 attractive potential proportional to the particle contact area on the surface and with adsorption strengths that depend on the species type. Particles have board-like shape, with sizes chosen using a symmetry criterion: same volume and same aspect ratio $\kappa$. Phase diagrams were calculated for $\kappa=10$, 20 and 40 and different values of adsorption strengths. For small adsorption strengths the mixtures exhibit a second-order uniaxial nematic-biaxial nematic transition for molar fraction of rods $0\leq x\lesssim 0.9$. In the uniaxial nematic phase the particle axes of rods and plates are aligned perpendicular and parallel to the monolayer, respectively. At the transition, the orientational symmetry of the plate axes is broken, and they orient parallel to a director lying on the surface. For large and equal adsorption strengths the mixture demixes at low pressures into a uniaxial nematic phase, rich in plates, and a biaxial nematic phase, rich in rods. This demixing is located between two tricritical points. Also, at higher pressures and in the plate-rich part of the phase diagram, the system exhibits a strong first-order uniaxial nematic-biaxial nematic phase transition with a large density coexistence gap. When rod adsorption is considerably large while that of plates is small, the transition to the biaxial nematic phase is always of second order. At very high pressures the mixture can effectively be identified as a two-dimensional mixture of squares and rectangles which again demixes above a certain critical point. We also studied the relative stability of uniform phases with respect to density modulations of smectic, columnar and crystalline symmetry.