Phase and structural order in mixture of nematic liquid crystals and anisotropic nanoparticles

ABSTRACT

We studied the structural order in randomly perturbed nematic liquid crystals using a random anisotropic nematic-type lattice model. Simulations were carried out at zero temperature and at various other temperatures, for which we varied the concentration of impurities p, anchoring strength W and imposed external strength fields B at two different histories: temperature-quenched history (TQH) and field-quenched history. The Haller approximation method utilized the temperature dependence of the order parameter to determine the pseudo-critical exponent β at different values of p and W. Consequently, the values of β increased when p and W were increased. Additionally, applying an external field B for investigating the parameters revealed that the TQH established long-range order for high magnitudes of B at zero temperature (T* = 0) and T* = 0.5.

KEYWORDS:

• Random field anisotropy
• nematic liquid crystal
• Lebwhol–Lasher
• order parameter
• Haller approximation method

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Technology Innovation Industrial Program funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MI, Korea) [10052667, Development of high sensitive (< 30 mJ/cm²) R/G/B color photo-rewritable 3D holographic materials and 1 fps speed frame switching technology].