BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Phase behaviour in mixtures of unixial hard particles: biaxiality 
 and confinement - Galindo\, A (Imperial College London)
DTSTART:20130320T110000Z
DTEND:20130320T115000Z
UID:TALK44029@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Mustapha Amrani
DESCRIPTION:The nematic biaxial phase has remained a key challenge in the 
 science of liquid crystals since it was first proposed. Recently the first
  experimental evidence of stable biaxial nematic phases has been obtained 
 in thermotropic liquid crystals of single component biaxial mesogens by Ma
 dsen et al.\, and others. Still elusive however is the possibility of stab
 ilizing biaxial nematic phases in mixtures of uniaxial particles. This ave
 nue has been explored in some detail using theory and computer simulation\
 , but leads one to the conclusion that\, at least in the case of mixtures 
 of hard particles\, the nematic biaxial phase is thermodynamically unstabl
 e with respect to demixing into two uniaxial phases. Theoretical calculati
 ons have\, however\, pointed out that with an appropriate attractive unlik
 e interaction\, a homogeneous biaxial nematic phase could be stabilized. E
 xperimental work on mixtures of rod and disc-like molecules has tended to 
 confirm the view that such a system would favou r phase separation\, until
  the recent studies of Apreutesei and Mehl. In this contribution\, we use 
 canonical Monte Carlo molecular simulations to study model mixtures of rod
 like and disklike molecules interacting through two intermolecular potenti
 al models: one incorporating spherically symmetric (isotropic) attractive 
 interactions\; another with anisotropic attractive interactions. These mod
 els exhibit nematic and smectic biaxial phases. In the final part of the t
 alk\, if time allows\, I will briefly discuss the changes in the phase beh
 avior that occur when uniaxial disc-like particles are placed in confineme
 nt between parallel walls and consider the surface ordering and capillary 
 phenomena in this system.\n
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR