Dresden 2011 – scientific programme
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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 44: Micro- and Nanofluidics I
CPP 44.12: Talk
Thursday, March 17, 2011, 17:00–17:15, ZEU 160
Wetting of liquid-crystals on flat surfaces. The role of substrate anchoring. — •Manuel Greschek1 and Martin Schoen1,2 — 1Stranski-Laboratorium für Physikalische und Theoretische Chemie, Fakultät für Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, GERMANY — 2Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Engineering Building I, Box 7905, North Carolina State University, 911 Partners Way, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
Predicting the behaviour of liquid crystals in confinement plays an important role in developing novel nanotechnological devices such as biosensors. Using grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations we investigate the impact of different anchoring scenarios on the wetting behaviour of a model liquid-crystal confined by a mesoscopic slit-pore. The intermolecular fluid-fluid interaction is modeled by a modified Lennard-Jones potential with an orientation-dependent attractive term. Different anchoring scenarios are described by an anchoring function g(û), that discriminates energetically between different orientations of a molecule with respect to the substrate plane. Depending on the specific anchoring scenarios the fluid may or may not wet the solid substrate where wetting may involve an orientation dependent prewetting transition. The thickness of the wetting layer is shown to depend on the anchoring function as well.