Regensburg 2022 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 36: Complex Fluids and Soft Matter 2 (joint session DY/CPP)

CPP 36.5: Talk

Thursday, September 8, 2022, 11:00–11:15, H18

Phase transitions in the generalised chiral Lebwohl-Lasher model — •Philipp Elsässer and Anja Kuhnhold — Institute of Physics, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany

The behaviour of liquid crystals can be described by using the Lebwohl-Lasher (LL) model, where unit vectors that resemble nematic directors are positioned on a simple cubic lattice. Due to the interaction potential, which favours parallel orientations, this model is well suited to analyse isotropic-nematic (IN) phase transitions.

There exist several extensions to this model with which its applicability can get further enhanced. We use two combined extensions to obtain the generalised chiral Lebwohl-Lasher model: We apply a generalisation to tune the sharpness of the potential, as in the work of Fish and Vink [1] and add a chiral term which is based on the work of Memmer et al. [2]. In this system we study the phase transition properties with the help of Monte Carlo simulations. To identify characteristic properties of the transitions, we apply finite-size scaling. This allows us to determine chirality-sharpness parameter pairs with which we can manipulate the nature of the transition between ordered and disordered states [3].

[1] J. M. Fish, R. L. C. Vink, PRE 81, 021705 (2010).

[2] R. Memmer, O. Fliegans, PCCP 5, 558 (2003).

[3] P. Elsässer, A. Kuhnhold, PRE 105, 054704 (2022).