Mean-field model for a mixture of biaxial nematogens and dipolar nanoparticles

TL;DR

This paper develops a mean-field model to study how biaxial nematogens and dipolar nanoparticles interact, revealing their influence on phase stability and transition temperatures in liquid crystal mixtures.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive mean-field framework for mixtures of biaxial nematogens and dipolar nanoparticles, analyzing phase diagrams and transition behaviors.

Findings

Nanoparticles affect the stability of nematic phases.

Phase diagrams show multicritical points influenced by nanoparticle interactions.

Low concentration of nanoparticles shifts transition temperatures.

Abstract

We analyze a mean-field model for mixtures involving biaxial nematogens and dipolar nanoparticles, taking into account orientational and isotropic pair interactions between nematogens, but also orientational nematogen-nanoparticle interactions. We determine bulk equilibrium phase diagrams for a wide range of interaction strengths, identifying in each case the effect of the nanoparticles on the stability of nematic phases and on the appearance of multicritical points. Special attention is given to the limit of low concentration of nanoparticles, in which their effect on the temperatures of both the first-order uniaxial-isotropic and the continuous biaxial-uniaxial transitions is investigated in detail.