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Selected Works

2013

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Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Physics

Distance Of Closest Approach Of Two Arbitrary Hard Ellipses In Two Dimensions, Xiaoyu Zheng, Peter Palffy-Muhoray Oct 2013

Distance Of Closest Approach Of Two Arbitrary Hard Ellipses In Two Dimensions, Xiaoyu Zheng, Peter Palffy-Muhoray

Peter Palffy-Muhoray

The distance of closest approach of hard particles is a key parameter of their interaction and plays an important role in the resulting phase behavior. For nonspherical particles, the distance of closest approach depends on orientation, and its calculation is surprisingly difficult. Although overlap criteria have been developed for use in computer simulations [ Vieillard-Baron J. Chem. Phys. 56 4729 (1972); Perram and Wertheim J. Comput. Phys. 58 409 (1985)], no analytic solutions have been obtained for the distance of closest approach of ellipsoids in three dimensions, or, until now, for ellipses in two dimensions. We have derived an analytic …


Nematic Biaxiality In A Bent-Core Material, Hyungguen Yoon, Shin-Woong Kang, Ronald Y. Dong, Alberto Marini, Kattera A. Suresh, Mohan Srinivasarao, Satyendra Kumar Oct 2013

Nematic Biaxiality In A Bent-Core Material, Hyungguen Yoon, Shin-Woong Kang, Ronald Y. Dong, Alberto Marini, Kattera A. Suresh, Mohan Srinivasarao, Satyendra Kumar

Satyendra Kumar

The results of a recent investigation of the nematic biaxiality in a bent-core mesogen (A131) are in apparent disagreement with earlier claims. Samples of mesogen A131 used in the two studies were investigated with polarized optical microscopy, conoscopy, carbon-13 NMR, and crossover frequency measurements. The results demonstrate that textural changes associated with the growth of biaxial nematic order appear at similar to 149 degrees C. The Maltese cross observed in the conoscopic figure gradually splits into two isogyres at lower temperatures indicating phase biaxiality. Presence of the uniaxial to biaxial nematic phase transition is further confirmed by temperature trends of …


Critical Behavior At The Nematic To Lamellar Phase Transitions: A Synchrotron X-Ray Scattering Study, S. T. Shin, J. D. Brock, Mark Sutton, J. D. Lister, Satyendra Kumar Oct 2013

Critical Behavior At The Nematic To Lamellar Phase Transitions: A Synchrotron X-Ray Scattering Study, S. T. Shin, J. D. Brock, Mark Sutton, J. D. Lister, Satyendra Kumar

Satyendra Kumar

The nematic (N) to lamellar (Lα) phase transition in binary mixtures of cesium-perfluoro-octanoate (CsPFO) and water has been studied by high-resolution synchrotron x-ray scattering at 46.6 weight % CsPFO. The longitudinal correlation length ξ∥ and the susceptibility σ associated with the lamellar phase fluctuations in the N phase, measured over three decades of reduced temperature, diverge with critical exponents ν∥=0.86±0.04 and γ=1.37±0.11, respectively. These results show that the N to Lα phase transition is quantitatively similar to the N to smectic-A phase transition of thermotropic liquid crystals with a wider nematic range.


Biaxial Nematic Phase In Bent-Core Thermotropic Mesogens, Bharat R. Acharya, Andrew Primak, Satyendra Kumar Oct 2013

Biaxial Nematic Phase In Bent-Core Thermotropic Mesogens, Bharat R. Acharya, Andrew Primak, Satyendra Kumar

Satyendra Kumar

A biaxial nematic phase had been predicted with D2h symmetry, wherein the mesogen’s long and short transverse axes are simultaneously aligned along the two orthogonal, primary and secondary directors, n and m, respectively. The unique low-angle x-ray diffraction patterns in the nematic phases exhibited by three rigid bent-core mesogens clearly reveal their biaxiality. The results of x-ray diffraction can be readily reproduced by ab initio calculations that explicitly include the bent-core shape in the form factor and assume short-range positional correlations.