title: Nanoconfinement-induced structures in chiral liquid crystals.
abstract: We employ Monte Carlo simulations in a specialized isothermal-isobaric and in the grand canonical ensemble to study structure formation in chiral liquid crystals as a function of molecular chirality. Our model potential consists of a simple Lennard-Jones potential, where the attractive contribution has been modified to represent the orientation dependence of the interaction between a pair of chiral liquid-crystal molecules. The liquid crystal is confined between a pair of planar and atomically smooth substrates onto which molecules are anchored in a hybrid fashion. Hybrid anchoring allows for the formation of helical structures in the direction perpendicular to the substrate plane without exposing the helix to spurious strains. At low chirality, we observe a cholesteric phase, which is transformed into a blue phase at higher chirality. More specifically, by studying the unit cell and the spatial arrangement of disclination lines, this blue phase can be established as blue phase II. If the distance between the confining substrates and molecular chirality are chosen properly, we see a third structure, which may be thought of as a hybrid, exhibiting mixed features of a cholesteric and a blue phase.
authors.affiliation: Stranski-Laboratorium für Physikalische und Theoretische Chemie, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, Berlin 10623, Germany. michael.melle@gmx.net
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Melle
authors.forename: Madlona
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Theile
authors.forename: Carol K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schoen
mesh_terms: D050866:Liquid Crystals / Q000737:chemistry*; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D013237:Stereoisomerism