2009/02/12 by Y. Trukhina, Yu. Trukhina, S. Jungblut +2
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Materials and Mechanics #Anisotropy #Compression (physics) #Deformation (meteorology) #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Liquid crystal #Material Dynamics and Properties #Rod #Surface (topology) #Surface tension #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.3117924
arxiv created 2009/02/12 · openalex publication_date 2009/04/27 · arxiv updated 2015/05/12 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
By means of computer simulations, we study how droplets of hard, rodlike particles optimize their shape and internal structure under the influence of the osmotic compression caused by the presence of spherical particles that act as depletion agents. At sufficiently high osmotic pressures, the rods that make up the drops spontaneously align to turn them into uniaxial nematic liquid-crystalline droplets. The nematic droplets or "tactoids" that are formed this way are not spherical but elongated, resulting from the competition between the anisotropic surface tension and the elastic deformation of the director field. In agreement with recent theoretical predictions, we find that sufficiently small tactoids have a uniform director field, while large ones are characterized by a bipolar director field. From the shape and director-field transformation of the droplets, we are able to estimate the surface anchoring strength and an average of the elastic constants of the hard-rod nematic.