Effect of cross-link density on the nematic–isotropic phase transition in liquid crystal elastomers

In this paper, we report results of non-Boltzmann Monte Carlo simulation of a cubic lattice model of a liquid crystal elastomer. A pseudo-Hamiltonian proposed recently forms the basis of our simulation. We have employed Frontier sampling in conjunction with Wang–Landau algorithm which helps sample t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computational materials science 2008-11, Vol.44 (1), p.185-189
Main Authors: Jayasri, D., Sastry, V.S.S., Murthy, K.P.N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties
Density of states
Equations of state, phase equilibria, and phase transitions
Exact sciences and technology
Frontier sampling
Liquid crystal elastomers
Monte Carlo simulation
Nematic–isotropic transition
Non-Boltzmann sampling
Physics
Specific phase transitions
Transitions in liquid crystals
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Summary:In this paper, we report results of non-Boltzmann Monte Carlo simulation of a cubic lattice model of a liquid crystal elastomer. A pseudo-Hamiltonian proposed recently forms the basis of our simulation. We have employed Frontier sampling in conjunction with Wang–Landau algorithm which helps sample the microstate space in such a way that all energy regions are visited with equal probability. We investigate the interplay between the nematic and elastic degrees of freedom. We find that with increase of cross-link density of the polymer chains, the nematic–isotropic transition becomes weaker.
ISSN:0927-0256
1879-0801
DOI:10.1016/j.commatsci.2008.01.045