Symmetry breaking and structure of a mixture of nematic liquid crystals and anisotropic nanoparticles.

Orientational ordering of a homogeneous mixture of uniaxial liquid crystalline (LC) molecules and magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) is studied using the Lebwohl-Lasher lattice model. We consider cases where NPs tend to be oriented perpendicularly to LC molecules due to elastic forces. We study domain-type configurations of ensembles, which are quenched from the isotropic phase. We show that for large enough concentrations of NPs the long range uniaxial nematic ordering is replaced by short range order exhibiting strong biaxiality. This suggests that the impact of NPs on orientational ordering of LCs for appropriate concentrations of NPs is reminiscent to the influence of quenched random fields which locally enforce a biaxial ordering.

Competition between local disordering and global ordering fields in nematic liquid crystals.

We study the influence of external electric or magnetic field B on orientational ordering of nematic liquid crystals or of other rod-like objects (e.g. nanotubes immersed in a liquid) in the presence of random anisotropy field type of disorder. The Lebwohl-Lasher lattice type of semi-microscopic approach is used at zero temperature. Therefore, results are valid well below the transition into the isotropic phase. We calculate the correlation function of systems as a function of B, concentration p of impurities imposing random anisotropy field disorder, the disorder strength W and system dimensionality (2D and 3D systems). In order to probe memory effects we calculate correlation length ξ for random and homogeneous initial configurations. We determine the crossover fields B(c)(p) separating roughly the ordered and disordered regime. Memory effects are apparent only in the latter case, i.e. for B < B(c).PACS numbers: 47.51.+a, 47.54.-r, 07.05.Tp, 61.30.-v.