TY - JOUR
T1 - Connectivity, Not Density, Dictates Percolation in Nematic Liquid Crystals of Slender Nanoparticles
AU - Finner, Shari P.
AU - Schilling, Tanja
AU - Van Der Schoot, Paul
PY - 2019/3/5
Y1 - 2019/3/5
N2 - We show by means of continuum theory and simulations that geometric percolation in uniaxial nematics of hard slender particles is fundamentally different from that in isotropic dispersions. In the nematic, percolation depends only very weakly on the density and is, in essence, determined by a distance criterion that defines connectivity. This unexpected finding has its roots in the nontrivial coupling between the density and the degree of orientational order that dictate the mean number of particle contacts. Clusters in the nematic are much longer than wide, suggesting the use of nematics for nanocomposites with strongly anisotropic transport properties.
AB - We show by means of continuum theory and simulations that geometric percolation in uniaxial nematics of hard slender particles is fundamentally different from that in isotropic dispersions. In the nematic, percolation depends only very weakly on the density and is, in essence, determined by a distance criterion that defines connectivity. This unexpected finding has its roots in the nontrivial coupling between the density and the degree of orientational order that dictate the mean number of particle contacts. Clusters in the nematic are much longer than wide, suggesting the use of nematics for nanocomposites with strongly anisotropic transport properties.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062949950&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.097801
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.097801
M3 - Article
C2 - 30932512
AN - SCOPUS:85062949950
SN - 0031-9007
VL - 122
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
IS - 9
M1 - 097801
ER -