Liquid-crystal ordering mediated by self-assembly of surfactant solution confined in nanodroplet: a dissipative particle dynamics study

Manipulating molecular order in nematic liquid crystal capillary bridgesviasurfactant adsorption: guiding principles from dissipative particle dynamics simulations

“…42,43 DPD has been extensively used for studying soft materials, such as copolymers, [43][44][45] nanoparticles, [46][47][48] surfactants, [49][50][51][52][53] and liquid crystals. 25,54,55 The results of these simulations are in general consistent with experiments, and sometimes explain phenomena that are hard to observe with experimental techniques alone. Al Sunaidi et al 54 used DPD to study the phase transitions encountered by rod-like molecules, and described the conditions at which isotropic, nematic, smectic A and crystalline phases are stable.…”

Engineered liquid crystal nano droplets: insights from multi-scale simulations

“…[17][18][19][20] Other studies focused on the molecular orientation as a function of temperature and changes in the interaction with homogeneous shells surrounding the LC droplets. 21,22 Despite these advancements, the length scale in between molecular simulations and continuum models remains little explored by available computational approaches, although future technologies are likely to require underpinning understanding at the mesoscale.…”

Mesoscopic simulations of temperature-dependent anchoring and wetting behavior at aqueous–liquid crystal interfaces in the presence of a rod–coil amphiphilic monolayer

“…14,15 Moreover, recent work also suggests that the ordering of LCs also has a signicant effect on the interfacial assembly of amphiphiles. [16][17][18][19][20][21][22] For example, molecular simulation study by some of us 19 has shown that with an increase of amphiphiles at interface, the perpendicular penetration of LCs in monolayer as well as the stronger coupling between LCs and amphiphile tails, promote the lateral ordering transition from liquid-expanded to liquid-condensed phase in the resulting mixed monolayer. Very recently, in LC nanodroplets decorated with surfactants, a liquid-crystal phase (nematic or smectic) is found to induce much richer nanophases with morphologies dependent on surfactant concentration and temperature, including circular, striped and wormlike patterns.…”

“…Very recently, in LC nanodroplets decorated with surfactants, a liquid-crystal phase (nematic or smectic) is found to induce much richer nanophases with morphologies dependent on surfactant concentration and temperature, including circular, striped and wormlike patterns. [20][21][22] In view of the fact that both the orientational ordering of bulk thermotropic LCs 23 and the lateral ordering of amphiphile monolayers at isotropic interfaces (i.e., air-water and liquidliquid) 24 are sensitive to temperature, we thus expect that the thermal effects are also to remarkably inuence the anchoring behavior of LCs at heterogeneous system such as aqueous-LC interface. Actually, there have been several experimental and theoretical studies aimed at exploring the temperature-driven anchoring transitions of LCs in contact with solid substrates, wherein the alignment of LCs was found to change from planar to homeotropic and vice versa continuously or discontinuously with temperature.…”

“…From a perspective of the strong coupling between amphiphiles and LCs, thus a rich thermally-induced anchoring behavior is expected to emerge at aqueous-LC interface. We have to note that, although the surfactant-laden LC nanodroplet provides a robust aqueous-LC interface for the discovery of new classes of nanophases of amphiphiles, [20][21][22] the small and highly-curved interface is supposed to distort the propagation of the interfacial coupling of surfactant-LC into the bulk LCs, hence it may not be a viable platform for a direct examining of the thermally-induced anchoring behavior at aqueous-LC interfaces for potential applications.…”