Influence of anchoring in the phase behaviour of discotic liquid crystals

Abstract

Molecular dynamics simulations were performed for a Gay-Berne discotic fluid confined in a slab geometry for two different anchorings: homeotropic (face-on) and planar (edge-on), and for two different confinement lengths. Our results show that the behaviour of the more confined system in the temperature region of the isotropic–nematic transition is critically influenced by the presence of the walls: the growth of the solid–liquid crystal interface spans over the entire width of the cell, and the character of the transition is changed from first order to continuous. For all the confined systems studied, we observe a higher nematic–columnar transition temperature and a smaller nematic phase region in the phase diagram, as compared with the behaviour of the infinite system.