Phase diagram of hard colloidal platelets: a theoretical account
arXiv:0908.1362 · doi:10.1080/00268970903160605
Abstract
We construct the complete liquid crystal phase diagram of hard plate-like cylinders for variable aspect ratio using Onsager's second virial theory with the Parsons-Lee decoupling approximation to account for higher-body interactions in the isotropic and nematic fluid phases. The stability of the solid (columnar) state at high packing fraction is included by invoking a simple equation of state based on a Lennard-Jones-Devonshire (LJD) cell model which has proven to be quantitatively reliable over a large range of packing fractions. By employing an asymptotic analysis based on the Gaussian approximation we are able to show that the nematic-columnar transition is universal and independent of particle shape. The predicted phase diagram is in qualitative agreement with simulation results.
8 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Mol. Phys
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Cited by in corpus (16)
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