Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Calamitic and Discotic Liquid Crystals using a Hybrid Gay-Berne Luckhurst Romano Potential

Abstract

We report a molecular dynamics simulation study of a system of particles interacting via an anisotropic potential proposed by Luckhurst and Romano and modified by scaling with part of the well depth formalism employed by Gay-Berne. Parameters are selected to model calamitic mesogens and the system exhibits a variety of mesophases as the temperature is lowered. The phases are provisionally identified as isotropic, nematic, a highly ordered fluid with some smectic features and crystal. Comparison is made with a previous study with the same potential parameterised to model discotic mesogens.

Key Words:

• Calmitic
• discotic
• liquid crystal
• soft anisotropic potential