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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 22: Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics II (CPP jointly with DS, HL, O)

O 22.6: Vortrag

Montag, 31. März 2014, 16:45–17:00, ZEU 222

Frank elastic constants in nematic mesophases of polymeric semiconductors — •Patrick Gemünden, Kurt Kremer, and Kostas Ch. Daoulas — Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz

Liquid crystalline (LC) mesophases of polymeric semiconductors[1] can facilitate material processing. We develop a particle-based modeling approach considering poly(alkylthiophenes) as a test system for studying nematic mesophases. The method uses “soft tube” representations of chains where non-bonded potentials are defined by soft, directional interactions.[2,3] Here, we focus on Frank elastic constants (FC). Calculating FCs is important for comparing material properties from the soft model with experiments, studying theoretical questions related to FCs in polymer nematics and linking particle-based and continuum descriptions of LCs. We calculate FCs related to bend, splay and twist deformations from the fluctuations of the local nematic director. Indeed, the magnitudes of the FCs from our simulations agree with experiments on polymer nematics. We study the dependence on system parameters, e.g. chain length, and compare with predictions by analytical field theory.[4] Eventually we study local density fluctuations in the nematic samples, which, as predicted by theory, lead to an anisotropic scattering pattern and can be related to the elastic properties.

[1] Ho et al., Macromolecules 43, 7895 (2010) [2] Gemünden et al., Macromolecules 46, 5762 (2013) [3] Daoulas et al., J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 24, 284121 (2012) [4] Le Doussal & Nelson, Europhys. Lett. 15, 161 (1991)