Detection of an intermediate biaxial phase in the phase diagram of biaxial liquid crystals: entropic sampling study.

Abstract

We investigate the phase sequence of biaxial liquid crystals, based on a general quadratic model Hamiltonian over the relevant parameter space, with a Monte Carlo simulation which constructs equilibrium ensembles of microstates, overcoming possible (free) energy barriers (combining entropic and frontier sampling techniques). The resulting phase diagram qualitatively differs from the universal phase diagram predicted earlier from mean-field theory (MFT), as well as the Monte Carlo simulations with the Metropolis algorithm. The direct isotropic-to-biaxial transition predicted by the MFT is replaced in certain regions of the space by the onset of an additional intermediate biaxial phase of very low order, leading to the sequence N(B)-N(B1)-I. This is due to inherent barriers to fluctuations of the components comprising the total energy, and may explain the difficulties in the experimental realization of these phases.