Kinetic pathways of the Nematic-Isotropic phase transition as studied by confocal microscopy on rod-like viruses

Abstract

We investigate the kinetics of phase separation for a mixture of rodlike viruses (fd) and polymer (dextran), which effectively constitutes a system of attractive rods. This dispersion is quenched from a flow-induced fully nematic state into the region where the nematic and the isotropic phase coexist. We show experimental evidence that the kinetic pathway depends on the overall concentration. When the quench is made at high concentrations, the system is meta-stable and we observe typical nucleation-and-growth. For quenches at low concentration the system is unstable and the system undergoes a spinodal decomposition. At intermediate concentrations we see the transition between both demixing processes, where we locate the spinodal point.

arXiv comment11 pages, 6 figures, accepted in J. Phys.: Condens. Matter as symposium paper for the 6th Liquid Matter Conference in Utrecht

References in corpus (3)

• Isotropic-nematic phase transition in suspensions of filamentous virus and the neutral polymer Dextran
• Surface freezing and a two-step pathway of the isotropic-smectic phase transition in colloidal rods
• Formation of nematic liquid crystalline phase of F-actin varies from continuous to biphasic transition

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Nematic-Isotropic Spinodal Decomposition Kinetics of Rod-like Viruses
• Shear induced tuning and memory effects in colloidal gels of rods and spheres
• Electric-field induced shape transition of nematic tactoids
• Effect of Electric Fields on the Director Field and Shape of Nematic Tactoids
• Supersaturated dispersions of rod-like viruses with added attraction