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SUMMARY:Density Functional Theory for Hard-Body Models of Liquid Crystals 
 - Evans\, B (University of Bristol)
DTSTART:20130318T110000Z
DTEND:20130318T115000Z
UID:TALK43990@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Mustapha Amrani
DESCRIPTION:Hard-body models for lyotropic liquid crystalline phases date 
 back to Onsager (1949) who showed that a fluid of hard rods can exhibit a 
 transition from an isotropic to a nematic phase that is driven purely by e
 ntropy. Onsagers treatment is based on a second-virial description of the 
 free energy that is accurate in the (Onsager) limit of very long thin rods
  (spherocylinders). For shorter spherocylinders and for smectic and crysta
 lline phases\, as well as for treating inhomogeneous fluids\, e.g. situati
 ons arising at interfaces between phases and in anchoring and wetting at s
 ubstrates\, it is necessary to develop theories in which the ensemble aver
 aged one-body particle density depends on both the orientation and the pos
 ition of the particles. Density Functional Theory (DFT)\, developed first 
 for simple fluids with spherical particles\, is one such theory and it has
  emerged as powerful means of tackling phase transitions and the structure
  and thermodynamics of inhomogeneous fl uids. This lecture will provide an
  overview of the basics of DFT before focusing on the successful geometry-
 based Fundamental Measure Theory (FMT) approach introduced originally by R
 osenfeld (1989) for hard-sphere mixtures. FMT for spheres has as its start
 ing point the incorporation of the exact second virial contribution into t
 he free energy functional. Attempts to extend the ideas of FMT to hard bod
 ies of arbitrary shape were made by Rosenfeld (1994\, 1995). These failed 
 to yield a stable nematic phase for spherocylinders\, partly because they 
 did not include the correct Onsager limit. In recent years there has been 
 renewed effort to develop improved FMT that go towards capturing this limi
 t. I shall describe progress for a variety of model colloidal liquid cryst
 alline fluids including hard spherocylinders\, mixtures of hard spheres an
 d rods\, and hard thin platelets. If time permits I shall mention some rec
 ent applications of Dynamical DFT to non-equilibrium properties. \n
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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