Bellini T, Caggioni M, Clark N A, Mantegazza F, Maritan A, Pelizzola A
INFM, Dipartimento di Chimica, Biochimica e Biotecnologie per la Medicina, Università di Milano, 20122 Milan, Italy.
Phys Rev Lett. 2003 Aug 22;91(8):085704. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.085704.
Water-in-oil microemulsions of nanodroplets in the isotropic phase of a thermotropic liquid crystal exhibit, with decreasing temperature and in anticipation of a demixing transition, enhanced correlation in fluctuations of both molecular orientation and droplet concentration. Mean field modeling of this pretransition behavior, on the basis of a lattice in which the nanodroplets are introduced as holes, shows that the observed interdroplet attractive interaction is produced by the disordering effect of the droplets on the liquid crystal and mediated solely by paranematic fluctuations.
