Confinement and orientational study at liquid crystal phase transitions

Abstract

We have studied the heat capacity of the thermotropic liquid crystal, octylcyanobiphenyl (8CB), confined to the nearly cylindrical, 0·2 μm diameter pores of Anopore membranes. Orientation of the nematic director within the pores can be controlled with surface treatment. It is known from NMR measurements that the nematic director is aligned parallel to the pore axis in the untreated membrane. A perpendicular alignment is obtained when the pore surface is treated with lecithin. The second order smectic A to nematic (S_A–N) and the weakly first order nematic to isotropic (N–I) phase transitions of 8CB were studied in these pores, for both director orientations, using an AC calorimetry technique. Effects on heat capacity amplitudes, transition temperature shifts, rounding and broadening of these phase transitions will be presented and contrasted with bulk measurements.     

Thermodynamics of activated phase transitions of 8CB: DSC and MC calorimetry

The present paper reports the heating rate effect on the phase transitions of a pure liquid crystal octylcyanobiphenyl (8CB) with use of Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Modulation Calorimetry (MC) techniques. The DSC runs were taken at various temperature ramp rates from 20 to 0.5 K/min for heating and cooling scans. Well-defined endothermic/exothermic peaks were found at the melting/crystallization, smectic-A to nematic (SmA-N), and nematic to isotropic (N-I) transitions on heating/cooling scans, respectively. All transitions shift in temperature significantly with different ramp rates. The temperature shift of C(p) peaks between heating and cooling scans indicates the order of the transitions. In addition, all transitions follow an Arrhenius behavior. The activation energy of a transition increases as the total energy involved in the transition decreases. The respective enthalpy and entropy change of each transition provides information on the Gibbs free energy. The significance of the results is discussed in terms of the order of transitions. A comparative analysis of MC and DSC techniques highlights the significance of the two techniques. MC is a practicable tool for observing the phase dynamics whereas DSC is a good tool for studying the rate kinematics of the transitions.     

Shape resonances in slow electron scattering by aromatic molecules. I. Anthraquinone derivatives

A series of anthraquinone (C(14)O(2)H(8)) derivatives has been studied by means of electron capture negative ion mass spectrometry (ECNI-MS), photoelectron spectroscopy (PES), and AM1 quantum chemical calculations. Mean lifetimes of molecular negative ions M(-.) (MNI) have been measured. The mechanism of long-lived MNI formation in the epithermal energy region of incident electrons has been investigated. A simple model of a molecule (a spherical potential well with the repulsive centrifugal term) has been applied for the analysis of the energy dependence of cross sections at the first stage of the electron capture process. It has been shown that a temporary resonance of MNI at the energy approximately 0.5 eV corresponds to a shape resonance with lifetime 1-2.10(-13) s in the f-partial wave (l = 3) of the incident electron. The next resonant state of MNI at the energy approximately 1.7 eV has been associated with the electron excited Feshbach resonance (whose parent state is a triplet npi* transition). In all cases the initial electron state of the MNI relaxes into the ground state by means of a radiationless transition, and the final state of the MNI is a nuclear excited resonance with a lifetime measurable on the mass spectrometry timescale. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of polydispersity and amine–epoxide ratio on molecular mobility in epoxy networks

Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) T₂ relaxation and pulsed-gradient spin-echo diffusion experiments at 175.5°C, molecular motions of the sole and gel of several epoxies of the type diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A (DGEBA; Shell Epon 1007F and 1009F) cured with 4,4′-diaminodiphenyl sulfone (DDS) have been studies as a function of curative content. It was found that the fraction of protons associated with the shorter T₂ component cannot be identified as the gel fraction until the substantial bimodal polymer polydispersity is accounted for in the spin relaxation model. The gel fraction and both relaxation rates have maxima near curing stoichiometry, and fall off more rapidly on the curative-poor side. The diffusion spectrum of the sol fraction was consistent with a light species (Epon 828 remnants) plus a polydisperse (M?_w/M?_n ?2) heavier species, in agreement with resin and sol gel permeation chromatography (GPC) results. Numerical simulations also show that polymer polydispersity is likely to affect the interpretation of T₂ relaxation found in the literature.     

A finite element formulation for global linear stability analysis of a nominally two‐dimensional base flow

A stabilized finite element method, to carry out the linear stability analysis of a two‐dimensional base flow to three‐dimensional perturbations that are periodic along span, is presented. The resulting equations for the time evolution of the disturbance requires a solution to the generalized eigenvalue problem. The analysis is global in nature and is also applicable to non‐parallel flows. Equal‐order‐interpolation functions for velocity and pressure are utilized. Stabilization terms are added to the Galerkin formulation to admit the use of equal‐order‐interpolation functions and to eliminate node‐to‐node oscillations that might arise in advection‐dominated flows. The proposed formulation is tested on two flow problems. First, the mode transitions in the circular Couette flow are investigated. Two scenarios are considered. In the first one, the outer cylinder is at rest, while the inner one spins. Two linearly unstable modes are identified. The primary mode is real and represents the axisymmetric Taylor vortices. The second mode is complex and consists of spiral vortices. For the counter‐rotating cylinders, the primary transition is via the appearance of spiral vortices. Excellent agreement with results from earlier studies is observed. The formulation is also utilized to investigate the parallel and oblique modes of vortex shedding past a cylinder for the Re = 100 flow. It is found that the flow is associated with a large number of unstable oblique shedding modes. The parallel mode of vortex shedding is a special case of this family of modes and is associated with the largest growth rate. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Role of aerosil dispersion on the activated kinetics of the LC1-xSilx system

This study explores the role of aerosil dispersion on activated phase transitions of bulk octylcyanobiphenyl (8CB) liquid crystals by performing heating rate-dependent experiments. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used at various heating ramp rates in order to probe the activated phase dynamics of the system. The system, LC1-xSilx, was prepared by mixing aerosil nanoparticles (7 nm in diameter) in the bulk 8CB by the solvent dispersion method (SDM). LC represents bulk 8CB, and Sil represents aerosil nanoparticles with concentration x in percent. The concentration of the aerosil nanoparticles (x) varied from 0 to 0.2 g/cm3 in the bulk 8CB. Well-defined, endothermic peaks were found on a heating scan at melting and at the smectic-A to nematic (SmA-N) and nematic to isotropic (N-I) transitions. These peaks show a temperature shift and a change in their shapes and sizes in the presence of aerosil nanoparticles. In addition, an exothermic peak also appeared before the melting peak during the heating scan in the presence of aerosil nanoparticles. All transitions shifted significantly with different heating ramp rates, following an Arrhenius behavior, showing activated kinetics. The presence of aerosil nanoparticles caused a significant increase in the enthalpy and a decrease in the activation energy compared to the results found in bulk 8CB. This behavior can be explained by aerosil dispersion in the LC1-xSilx, inducing a disorder in the bulk 8CB. Infrared (IR) spectroscopy shows a shift to higher frequency for the broad peak at 1082 cm-1, corresponding to an Si-O bond as the density of the aerosil increases, and can be explained in terms of surface and molecular interactions between aerosil nanoparticles and 8CB liquid crystal molecules.