Self-Assembly-Driven Nematization

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• 作者：Khanh Thuy Nguyen ; Francesco Sciortino ; Cristiano De Michele
• 刊名：Langmuir
• 出版年：2014
• 出版时间：April 29, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：30
• 期：16
• 页码：4814-4819
• 全文大小：416K
• 年卷期：v.30,no.16(April 29, 2014)
• ISSN：1520-5827

文摘

The anisotropy of attractive interactions between particles can favor, through a self-assembly process, the formation of linear semi-flexible chains. In the appropriate temperatures and concentration ranges, the growing aspect ratio of the aggregates can induce formation of a nematic phase, as recently experimentally observed in several biologically relevant systems. We present here a numerical study of the isotropic鈥搉ematic phase boundary for a model of bifunctional polymerizing hard cylinders, to provide an accurate benchmark for recent theoretical approaches and to assess their ability to capture the coupling between self-assembly and orientational ordering. The comparison indicates the importance of properly modeling excluded volume and orientational entropy and provides a quantitative confirmation of some theoretical predictions.