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SUMMARY:Brick-by-brick stabilizing the Biaxial Nematic Phase - Belli\, S (
 Utrecht University)
DTSTART:20130318T160000Z
DTEND:20130318T165000Z
UID:TALK43985@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Mustapha Amrani
DESCRIPTION:A fascinating way to improve the present-day liquid crystal te
 chnology consists of imagining to use new liquid crystal phases with "exot
 ic" properties\, like the biaxial nematic phase. However\, as an essential
  step in this direction one has to establish the conditions under which su
 ch a phase is thermodynamically stable. Inspired by a recent experiment on
  a colloidal suspension of mineral goethite particles [1]\, we use a mean 
 field theory to investigate the phase behavior of boardlike particles. By 
 modelling these nanoscopic bricks as cuboids with a hard-body interaction\
 , we analyze the conditions of stability of the long-searched biaxial-nema
 tic phase. We show that under specific conditions size-polydispersity\, a 
 common property in most colloids\, can increase appreciably the stability 
 of this liquid crystal phase [2]. Moreover\, we deduce that this effect ca
 n be interpreted in terms of an effective attraction\, and therefore that 
 a similar stability could be induced by a non-adsorbing depletant\, like a
  polymeric solution [3]. \n\n[1] E. van den Pol et al.\, Phys. Rev. Lett. 
 103\, 055901 (2009) [2] S. Belli\, A. Patti\, M. Dijkstra and R. van Roij\
 , Phys. Rev. Lett. 107\, 148303 (2011) [3] S. Belli\, M. Dijkstra and R. v
 an Roij\, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 24\, 284128 (2012) \n
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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