Depletion-induced biaxial nematic states of boardlike particles

Details Depletion-induced biaxial nematic states of boardlike particles Depletion-induced biaxial nematic states of boardlike particles

2011-11-17

arxiv.org/abs/1111.4132v2

Physics

Condensed Matter

Soft Condensed Matter

Scientific paper

With the aim of investigating the stability conditions of biaxial nematic liquid crystals, we study the effect of adding a non-adsorbing ideal depletant on the phase behavior of colloidal hard boardlike particles. We take into account the presence of the depletant by introducing an effective depletion attraction between a pair of boardlike particles. At fixed depletant fugacity, the stable liquid crystal phase is determined through a mean-field theory with restricted orientations. Interestingly, we predict that for slightly elongated boardlike particles a critical depletant density exists, where the system undergoes a direct transition from an isotropic liquid to a biaxial nematic phase. As a consequence, by tuning the depletant density, an easy experimental control parameter, one can stabilize states of high biaxial nematic order even when these states are unstable for pure systems of boardlike particles.

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