Hard-body models of bulk liquid crystals

Abstract

Hard models for particle interactions have played a crucial role in the understanding of the structure of condensed matter. In particular, they help to explain the formation of oriented phases in liquids made of anisotropic molecules or colloidal particles, and continue to be of great interest in the formulation of theories for liquids in bulk, near interfaces and in biophysical environments. Hard models of anisotropic particles give rise to complex phase diagrams, including uniaxial and biaxial nematic phases, discotic phases, and spatially ordered phases such as smectic, columnar or crystal. Also, their mixtures exhibit additional interesting behaviours where demixing competes with orientational order. Here we review the different models of hard particles used in the theory of bulk anisotropic liquids, leaving aside interfacial properties, and discuss the associated theoretical approaches and computer simulations, focusing on applications in equilibrium situations. The latter include one-component bulk fluids, mixtures and polydisperse fluids, both in two and three dimensions, and emphasis is put on liquid-crystal phase transitions and complex phase behaviour in general.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in J. Phys. Condens. Matter. 150 pages (preprint), 44 figures

References in corpus (57)

• Two-step melting in two dimensions: First-order liquid-hexatic transition
• Predicting phase equilibria in polydisperse systems
• Tetratic Order in the Phase Behavior of a Hard-Rectangle System
• Enhanced stability of layered phases in parallel hard-spherocylinders due to the addition of hard spheres
• Projected free energies for polydisperse phase equilibria
• Isotropic-nematic phase behavior of length polydisperse hard rods
• Dimensional crossover of the fundamental-measure functional for parallel hard cubes
• Phase Behavior of Bent-Core Molecules
• Simplified Onsager theory for isotropic-nematic phase equilibria of length polydisperse hard rods
• Fluid mixtures of parallel hard cubes
• Hard-body models of bulk liquid crystals
• Nematic phase transitions in mixtures of thin and thick colloidal rods
• Stable smectic phase in suspensions of polydisperse colloidal platelets with identical thickness
• Density functional theory for colloidal mixtures of hard platelets, rods, and spheres
• Polydispersity stabilizes Biaxial Nematic Liquid Crystals
• Effect of particle geometry on phase transitions in two-dimensional liquid crystals
• Isotropic-nematic phase equilibria in the Onsager theory of hard rods with length polydispersity
• Close to the edge of Fundamental Measure Theory: density functional for hard sphere mixtures
• Perturbation Theory for Classical Solids
• Phase diagram of hard colloidal platelets: a theoretical account
• Isotropic-nematic phase equilibria of polydisperse hard rods: The effect of fat tails in the length distribution
• Polydispersity and ordered phases in solutions of rodlike macromolecules
• Density Functional for Anisotropic Fluids
• Enhancement by polydispersity of the biaxial nematic phase in a mixture of hard rods and plates
• Phase equilibria in the polydisperse Zwanzig model of hard rods
• Orientational ordering in hard rectangles: The role of three-body correlations
• From rods to helices: evidence of a screw-like nematic phase
• Phase diagram of hard board like colloids from computer simulations
• Theory and simulation of two-dimensional nematic and tetratic phases
• Phase diagrams of Zwanzig models: The effect of polydispersity
• Phase stacking diagram of colloidal mixtures under gravity
• Bulk inhomogeneous phases of anisotropic particles: A fundamental measure functional study of the restricted orientations model
• Orientational correlations and the effect of spatial gradients in the equilibrium steady state of hard rods in 2D : A study using deposition-evaporation kinetics
• Biaxial nematic phases in fluids of hard board-like particles
• Capillary ordering and layering transitions in two-dimensional hard-rod fluids
• A fundamental-measure density functional for mixtures of parallel hard cylinders
• Phase behavior of parallel hard cylinders
• Demixing behavior in two-dimensional mixtures of anisotropic hard bodies
• Colloids, polymers, and needles: Demixing phase behavior
• Entropy driven formation of Smectic C in system of Zig-zag shaped molecules
• Demixing and orientational ordering in mixtures of rectangular particles
• Liquid crystalline phases and demixing in binary mixtures of shape-anisometric colloids
• Bulk phase behaviour of binary hard platelet mixtures from density functional theory
• Enhanced stability of tetratic phase due to clustering
• Bulk fluid phase behaviour of colloidal platelet-sphere and platelet-polymer mixtures
• Stability of smectic phases in hard-rod mixtures
• Deriving the Rosenfeld Functional from the Virial Expansion
• Depletion effects in smectic phases of hard rod--hard sphere mixtures
• Density-functional study of defects in two-dimensional circular nematic nanocavities
• Non-uniform liquid--crystalline phases of parallel hard rod-shaped particles: From ellipsoids to cylinders
• Phase behavior of liquid-crystal monolayers of rod-like and plate-like particles
• Biaxial nematic and smectic phases of parallel particles with different cross sections
• Phase behavior of mixtures of hard ellipses: A scaled particle density functional study
• Effect of polydispersity, bimodality and aspect ratio on the phase behavior of colloidal platelet suspensions
• Smectic and columnar ordering in length-polydisperse fluids of parallel hard cylinders
• Interplay between columnar and smectic stability in suspensions of polydisperse colloidal platelets
• Molecular theory of elastic constants of liquid crystals. III. Application to smectic phases with tilted orientational order

Cited by in corpus (43)

• Basic Understanding of Condensed Phases of Matter via Packing Models
• Entropy-driven formation of prolate and oblate cholesteric phases by computer simulations
• Hard-body models of bulk liquid crystals
• Clustering in vibrated monolayers of granular rods
• Hard competition: stabilizing the elusive biaxial nematic phase in suspensions of colloidal particles with extreme lengths
• The isotropic-nematic transition for hard rods on a three--dimensional (3D) cubic lattice
• Density functional theory for dense nematics with steric interactions
• In silico study of liquid crystalline phases formed by bent-shaped molecules with excluded-volume type interactions
• Kinetic theory of pattern formation in mixtures of microtubules and molecular motors
• Neural force functional for non-equilibrium many-body colloidal systems
• Algebraic equations of state for the liquid crystalline phase behavior of hard rods
• Perturbative density functional methods for cholesteric liquid crystals
• Connectedness percolation of hard convex polygonal rods and platelets
• Demixing and tetratic ordering in some binary mixtures of hard superellipses
• Dense packings of hard circular arcs
• Reduced-variance orientational distribution functions from torque sampling
• The study of uniaxial-biaxial phase transition of confined hard ellipsoids using density functional theory
• Effect of clustering on the orientational properties of a fluid of hard right isosceles triangles
• Orientational ordering and layering of hard plates in narrow slit-like pores
• Phase behaviour and correlations of parallel hard squares: From highly confined to bulk systems
• Sedimentation of colloidal plate-sphere mixtures and inference of particle characteristics from stacking sequences
• Biaxial layering transition of hard rod-like particles in narrow slit-like pores
• Explicit excluded volume of cylindrically symmetric convex bodies
• Spinodal instabilities in polydisperse lyotropic nematics
• From n-layer planar ordering to the monolayer homeotropic structure of confined hard rods: The effect of shape anisotropy and wall-to-wall separation
• Universality of the close packing properties and markers of isotropic-to-tetratic crossover in quasi-one-dimensional superdisk fluid
• Biaxial nematic order in fundamental measure theory
• Orientational ordering in a fluid of hard kites: A density-functional-theory study
• Elastic response of colloidal smectics: insights from microscopic theory
• Ordering properties of anisotropic hard bodies in one-dimensional channels
• Competition between shape anisotropy and deformation in the ordering and close packing properties of quasi-one-dimensional hard superellipse fluids
• Ordering and association of patchy particles in quasi-one-dimensional channel
• Orientational ordering and correlations in a quasi-one-dimensional hard-dumbbell fluid
• Complex Smectic Phases in Polymer Grafted Shape-Uniform Cellulose Nano-Crystals
• Phase Separation in Mixtures of Nematic and Isotropic Fluids
• Nematic-isotropic transition in a density-functional theory for hard spheroidal colloids
• Density fields for branching, stiff networks in rigid confining regions
• Density-functional theory for clustering of two-dimensional hard particle fluids
• Second-virial theory for shape-persistent living polymers templated by discs
• Interplay of orientational order and roughness in simulated thin film growth of anisotropically interacting particles
• Confinement Reveals Hidden Splay-Bend Order in Twist-Bend Nematics
• Topology of orientational defects in confined smectic liquid crystals
• Phase behavior of hard circular arcs