Energy landscape view of phase transitions and slow dynamics in thermotropic liquid crystals.

ABSTRACT: Thermotropic liquid crystals are known to display rich phase behavior on temperature variation. Although the nematic phase is orientationally ordered but translationally disordered, a smectic phase is characterized by the appearance of a partial translational order in addition to a further increase in orientational order. In an attempt to understand the interplay between orientational and translational order in the mesophases that thermotropic liquid crystals typically exhibit upon cooling from the high-temperature isotropic phase, we investigate the potential energy landscapes of a family of model liquid crystalline systems. The configurations of the system corresponding to the local potential energy minima, known as the inherent structures, are determined from computer simulations across

SUBMITTER: Chakrabarti D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1464323 | biostudies-literature | 2006 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature