Connectedness percolation of hard deformed rods

Abstract

Nanofiller particles, such as carbon nanotubes or metal wires, are used in functional polymer composites to make them conduct electricity. They are often not perfectly straight cylinders, but may be tortuous or exhibit kinks. Therefore we investigate the effect of shape deformations of the rodlike nanofillers on the geometric percolation threshold of the dispersion. We do this by using connectedness percolation theory within a Parsons-Lee type of approximation, in combination with Monte Carlo integration for the average overlap volume in the isotropic fluid phase. We find that a deviation from a perfect rodlike shape has very little effect on the percolation threshold, unless the particles are strongly deformed. This demonstrates that idealized rod models are useful even for nanofillers that superficially seem imperfect. In addition, we show that for small or moderate rod deformations, the universal scaling of the percolation threshold is only weakly affected by the precise particle shape.

arXiv comment7 pages, 8 figures; simplified figures and added to discussion, results unchanged

References in corpus (5)

• Solution of the tunneling-percolation problem in the nanocomposite regime
• Percolation in suspensions of hard nanoparticles: From spheres to needles
• Quasiuniversal connectedness percolation of polydisperse rod systems
• Cholesterics of colloidal helices: Predicting the macroscopic pitch from the particle shape and thermodynamic state
• Density Functional Theory for Chiral Nematic Liquid Crystals

Cited by in corpus (9)

• In silico study of liquid crystalline phases formed by bent-shaped molecules with excluded-volume type interactions
• Connectivity, Not Density, Dictates Percolation in Nematic Liquid Crystals of Slender Nanoparticles
• Connectedness percolation of hard convex polygonal rods and platelets
• Unusual geometric percolation of hard nanorods in the uniaxial nematic liquid crystalline phase
• Nearest-neighbor connectedness theory: A general approach to continuum percolation
• Simulation study of the electrical tunneling network conductivity of suspensions of hard spherocylinders
• Continuum percolation expressed in terms of density distributions
• Geometric percolation of hard nanorods: the interplay of spontaneous and externally induced uniaxial particle alignment
• Molecular-shape- and size-independent power-law dependence of percolation thresholds on radius of gyration in ideal molecular systems