Show simple item record

dc.contributor.authorVelasco Caravaca, Enrique 
dc.contributor.authorMartínez-Ratón, Yuri
dc.contributor.otherUAM. Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensadaes_ES
dc.date.accessioned2015-08-05T10:31:23Z
dc.date.available2015-08-05T10:31:23Z
dc.date.issued2011-03-28
dc.identifier.citationJournal of Chemical Physics 134.12 (2011): 124904en_US
dc.identifier.issn0021-9606 (print)en_US
dc.identifier.issn1089-7690 (online)en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10486/667684
dc.descriptionThe following article appeared in Journal of Chemical Physics 134.12 (2011): 124904 and may be found at http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jcp/10.1063/1.3570964en_US
dc.description.abstractWe theoretically discuss, using density-functional theory, the phase stability of nematic and smectic ordering in a suspension of platelets of the same thickness but with a high polydispersity in diameter, and study the influence of polydispersity on this stability. The platelets are assumed to interact like hard objects, but additional soft attractive and repulsive interactions, meant to represent the effect of depletion interactions due to the addition of nonabsorbing polymer, or of screened Coulomb interactions between charged platelets in an aqueous solvent, respectively, are also considered. The aspect (diameter-to-thickness) ratio is taken to be very high, in order to model solutions of mineral platelets recently explored experimentally. In this regime a high degree of orientational ordering occurs; therefore, the model platelets can be taken as completely parallel and are amenable to analysis via a fundamental-measure theory. Our focus is on the nematic versus smectic phase interplay, since a high degree of polydispersity in diameter suppresses the formation of the columnar phase. When interactions are purely hard, the theory predicts a continuous nematic-to-smectic transition, regardless of the degree of diameter polydispersity. However, polydispersity enhances the stability of the smectic phase against the nematic phase. Predictions for the case where an additional soft interaction is added are obtained using mean-field perturbation theory. In the case of the one-component fluid, the transition remains continuous for repulsive forces, and the smectic phase becomes more stable as the range of the interaction is decreased. The opposite behavior with respect to the range is observed for attractive forces, and in fact the transition becomes of first order below a tricritical point. Also, for attractive interactions, nematic demixing appears, with an associated critical point. When platelet polydispersity is introduced the tricritical temperature shifts to very high valuesen_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThis work has been partly financed by grants NANOFLUID, MOSAICO, and MODELICO from Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), and Grant Nos. FIS2007-65869-C03-01, FIS2008-05865-C02-02, FIS2010-22047-C05-01, and FIS2010-22047-C05-04 from Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spain)en_US
dc.format.extent12 pag.en
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.language.isoengen
dc.publisherAmerican Institute of Physicsen_US
dc.relation.ispartofJournal of Chemical Physicsen_US
dc.rights© 2011 American Institute of Physicsen_US
dc.subject.otherAqueous solventsen_US
dc.subject.otherAttractive forceen_US
dc.subject.otherCharged plateletsen_US
dc.subject.otherColumnar phaseen_US
dc.subject.otherDepletion interactionsen_US
dc.subject.otherNematic and smectic orderingen_US
dc.subject.otherNematic phaseen_US
dc.subject.otherNonabsorbing polymersen_US
dc.subject.otherScreened Coulomb interactionen_US
dc.subject.otherSmectic phaseen_US
dc.subject.otherTemperature shiften_US
dc.subject.otherTricritical pointen_US
dc.titleEffect of polydispersity and soft interactions on the nematic versus smectic phase stability in platelet suspensionsen_US
dc.typearticleen
dc.subject.ecienciaFísicaes_ES
dc.relation.publisherversionhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3570964es_ES
dc.identifier.doi10.1063/1.3570964es_ES
dc.identifier.publicationfirstpage124904es_ES
dc.identifier.publicationissue12es_ES
dc.identifier.publicationlastpage124904es_ES
dc.identifier.publicationvolume134es_ES
dc.relation.projectIDComunidad de Madrid. S2009/ESP-1691/MODELICOes_ES
dc.type.versioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionen
dc.rights.accessRightsopenAccessen
dc.facultadUAMFacultad de Ciencias
dc.institutoUAMInstituto Universitario de Ciencia de Materiales Nicolás Cabrera (INC)


Files in this item

Thumbnail

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record