Formation of a columnar liquid crystal in a simple one-component system of particles

Metere, Alfredo; Sarman, Sten; Oppelstrup, Tomas; Dzugutov, Mikhail

doi:10.1039/c5sm00570a

Title: Formation of a columnar liquid crystal in a simple one-component system of particles

Journal Article · Tue May 05 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Soft Matter

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1039/c5sm00570a· OSTI ID:1879265

Metere, Alfredo ^[1]; Sarman, Sten ^[1]; Oppelstrup, Tomas ^[2]; Dzugutov, Mikhail ^[3]

Stockholm Univ. (Sweden)
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm (Sweden)

Here, we report a molecular dynamics simulation demonstrating that a columnar liquid crystal, commonly formed by disc-shaped molecules, can be formed by identical particles interacting via a spherically symmetric potential. Upon isochoric cooling from a low-density isotropic liquid state the simulated system underwent a weak first order phase transition which produced a liquid crystal phase composed of parallel particle columns arranged in a hexagonal pattern in the plane perpendicular to the column axis. The particles within columns formed a liquid structure and demonstrated a significant intracolumn diffusion. Further cooling resulted in another first-order transition whereby the column structure became periodically ordered in three dimensions transforming the liquid-crystal phase into a crystal. This result is the first observation of a columnar liquid crystal formation in a simple one-component system of particles. Its conceptual significance is in that it demonstrated that liquid crystals that have so far only been produced in systems of anisometric molecules can also be formed by mesoscopic soft-matter and colloidal systems of spherical particles with appropriately tuned interatomic potential.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); Swedish E-Science Research Foundation (SERC); Swedish National Research Council (VR)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-07NA27344

OSTI ID:: 1879265

Report Number(s):: LLNL-JRNL-656140; 776968; TRN: US2307623

Journal Information:: Soft Matter, Vol. 11, Issue 23; ISSN 1744-683X

Publisher:: Royal Society of ChemistryCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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