Abstract
We have investigated the effect of adding polar rodlike nanoparticles (NPs) to a liquid crystal using Monte Carlo simulations. The mesogens (Ms) are represented with Gay–Berne elongated ellipsoids endowed with a central axial electric dipole. A NP is instead modelled by a overall rod-like set of rigidly assembled Lennard–Jones spherical beads (Orlandi et al. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 18, 2428–2441 (2016). doi:10.1039/C5CP05754J) that are either non-polar or endowed with a central axial dipole of different strengths. We consider two cases: one of strong NP-M affinity and weak NP-NP interactions (case 1) and the opposite one of weak NP-M affinity and strong NP-NP interactions (case 2). We find that for case 1 adding polar NPs slightly lowers the nematic-isotropic transition temperature which instead, for case 2, is essentially unaffected. Having strongly polar, instead of non-polar NPs reduces the
difference with the pristine one, while significantly increasing the dielectric anisotropy in the nematic phase, which could be useful in applications.
Acknowledgments
We thank Victor Reshetnyak, Dean R. Evans and Isabella Miglioli for stimulating discussions on ferroelectric nanoparticles in a preliminary phase of this work.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).