Abstract
We use density functional theory to study the capillary phase behaviour of a discoticsystem of colloidal platelets that are confined in a planar slit pore. The model plates havecircular shape, continuous orientations and vanishing thickness; they interact via hard-corerepulsion with each other and with the walls which induces homeotropic wall anchoring ofthe nematic director. We find that the isotropic–nematic capillary binodal is shifted tolower values of the chemical potential as compared to bulk isotropic–nematic coexistence.Capillary isotropic–nematic coexistence vanishes below a critical wall separationdistance which is significantly larger than it is in a reference system of thin hard(Onsager) rods confined between two parallel hard walls that act on the particlecentres.
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