Issue 5, 2019

Anomalous transport of magnetic colloids in a liquid crystal–magnetic colloid mixture

Abstract

We report an extensive molecular dynamics study on the translational dynamics of a hybrid system composed of dipolar soft spheres (DSS), representing ferromagnetic particles, suspended in a liquid crystal (LC) matrix. We observe that the LC matrix strongly modifies the dynamics of the DSS. In the isotropic regime, the DSS show a crossover from subdiffusive to normal diffusive behavior at long times, with an increase of the subdiffusive regime as the dipolar coupling strength is increased. In the nematic regime, the LC matrix, due to the collective reorientation of LC particles, imposes a cylindrical confinement on the DSS chains. This leads to a diffusive dynamics of DSS along the nematic director and a subdiffusive dynamics (with an exponent of ∼0.5) in the perpendicular direction. The confinement provided by the LC matrix is also reflected by the oscillatory behavior of the components of the velocity autocorrelation function of the DSS in the nematic phase.

Graphical abstract: Anomalous transport of magnetic colloids in a liquid crystal–magnetic colloid mixture

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
12 Oct 2018
Accepted
02 Jan 2019
First published
03 Jan 2019
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Soft Matter, 2019,15, 973-982

Anomalous transport of magnetic colloids in a liquid crystal–magnetic colloid mixture

G. P. Shrivastav and S. H. L. Klapp, Soft Matter, 2019, 15, 973 DOI: 10.1039/C8SM02090F

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