P‐120: Nucleation‐control Bistable Twist Nematic Display

Tseng, Man Chun; Lee, Chung-Yung; Ho, Tsz‐Kin; Kwok, Hoi‐Sing

doi:10.1002/j.2168-0159.2014.tb00379.x

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Recently, liquid crystalline phases have found a multitude of applications in nanoscience [7]. Droplet shapes play a crucial role in ink-jet technology [8], switching and bistable devices [9], photovoltaics as well as in bio-sensor applications with living liquid crystals [10]. Early experiments found evidence for aspherical spindle-shaped droplets called tactoids [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stochastic kinetics reveal imperative role of anisotropic interfacial tension to determine morphology and evolution of nucleated droplets in nematogenic films

Bhattacharjee¹

2017

Sci Rep

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For isotropic fluids, classical nucleation theory predicts the nucleation rate, barrier height and critical droplet size by ac- counting for the competition between bulk energy and interfacial tension. The nucleation process in liquid crystals is less understood. We numerically investigate nucleation in monolayered nematogenic films using a mesoscopic framework, in par- ticular, we study the morphology and kinetic pathway in spontaneous formation and growth of droplets of the stable phase in the metastable background. The parameter κ that quantifies the anisotropic elastic energy plays a central role in determining the geometric structure of the droplets. Noncircular nematic droplets with homogeneous director orientation are nucleated in a background of supercooled isotropic phase for small κ. For large κ, noncircular droplets with integer topological charge, accompanied by a biaxial ring at the outer surface, are nucleated. The isotropic droplet shape in a superheated nematic background is found to depend on κ in a similar way. Identical growth laws are found in the two cases, although an unusual two-stage mechanism is observed in the nucleation of isotropic droplets. Temporal distributions of successive events indi- cate the relevance of long-ranged elasticity-mediated interactions within the isotropic domains. Implications for a theoretical description of nucleation in anisotropic fluids are discussed.

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