Soft Condensed Matter, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Department of Physics, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 1, Utrecht 3584 CC, The Netherlands.
Institute for Theoretical Physics, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Phys Rev Lett. 2019 Aug 9;123(6):068001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.068001.
We perform an extensive computational study on the phase behavior of hard banana-shaped particles, and show that biaxial, twist-bend, and splay-bend nematic phases are metastable with respect to a smectic phase for a system of hard bent spherocylinders. However, if the smectic phase is destabilized-either by polydispersity in the particle length or by curvature in the particle shape-stable biaxial, twist-bend, and splay-bend nematic phases are obtained. This provides a unified and consistent picture on the subtle role of particle shape on the phase behavior of bent rods.
我们对硬香蕉形粒子的相行为进行了广泛的计算研究，结果表明，对于硬弯柱状粒子体系，双轴、扭曲和倾斜向列相相对于近晶相是亚稳的。然而，如果近晶相失稳——无论是由于粒子长度的多分散性还是由于粒子形状的曲率——则会得到稳定的双轴、扭曲和倾斜向列相。这为弯棒相行为中粒子形状的微妙作用提供了一个统一和一致的图景。
