Multi-step modeling of liquid crystals using ab initio molecular packing and hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics simulations

Abstract

A density functional theory (DFT) based multi-step simulation method is used to characterize the detailed molecular structure and inter/intra- molecular interactions of two benchmark liquid crystals (LC) 5CB, 8CB and a novel tri-biphenyl ring bent core LC material. The method uses hybrid DFT at the B3LYP/6-31G* level to obtain molecular structure and Raman data. These results are fed to a crystal packing simulation to find possible crystal structures. A pico-second quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) simulation model is built for the selected structures with lower overall energy as well as optimal density. The stabilized crystal structures are then extended into a super cell, heated and simulated using a mixed force field and nano-second molecular dynamics (MD). The described simulation process sequence provides predictions of molecular Raman spectrum, LC density, isotropic depolarization ratio, ratio of differential polarizability, order parameters, molecular structures, and rotating Raman spectrum of the different mesophases. The Raman spectra, order parameters and depolarization ratios all agree well with existing experimental and previous simulation results. The study of the novel tri-biphenyl ring bent core LC system shows that the ratio of differential polarizability depends on intra-molecular interactions. The findings presented in this manuscript contribute to the on-going efforts to establish links between LC molecular structures and their properties, including optical behavior.