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Abstract
In order to investigate the ordered structure of nematic liquid crystal molecules confined in a nanoslit, we carried out a classical molecular dynamics simulation of uniaxial prolate Gay–Berne particles in a flat, structureless slit at several temperatures. When the slit gap is so small that the system is not assumed as the bulk, particles in the slit possess orientationally ordered structures different from ones in the bulk. The weak spacial orientational correlation existed when the temperature corresponded to the isotropic phase in the bulk system. The first order isotropic–nematic phase transition was not clearly observed and the transitional phenomenon of the creation and annihilation of the uniaxial domains were observed. These results revealed that the ordered structure depends on the number of particles, in other words, cell size, and that the system with 100,000 or more particles gives reasonable results of an infinitely wide slit. The number of particles is converted into up to 220 particles of the length of the base.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Prof. M.P. Allen, Prof. P.M. Rodger and Dr. D. Cheung (University of Warwick) for their helpful discussions. This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for the 21st COE program at Keio University for ‘System Design: Paradigm Shift from Intelligence to Life’. This research was partially supported by the Core Research for Evolution Science and Technology (CREST) of the Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST).