Issue |
Europhys. Lett.
Volume 49, Number 6, March 2000
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 729 - 734 | |
Section | Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/epl/i2000-00211-3 | |
Published online | 01 September 2002 |
Long-range Casimir interactions between impurities in nematic liquid crystals and the collapse of polymer chains in such solvents
Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie Théorique
Ecole Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville
de Paris 10 rue Vauquelin, F-75231 Paris Cédex 05, France
Received:
27
July
1999
Accepted:
14
January
2000
The elastic interactions between objects embedded in a nematic liquid crystal are usually caused by the average distortion —rather than by the fluctuations— of the nematic orientational field. We argue that for sufficiently small particles, the nematic-mediated interaction originates purely from the fluctuations of the nematic director. This Casimir interaction decays as d-6, d being the distance between the particles, and it dominates van der Waals interactions close to the isotropic-to-nematic transition. Considering the nematic as a polymer solvent, we show that the onset of this Casimir interaction at the isotropic-to-nematic transition can discontinuously induce the collapse of a flexible polymer chain from the swollen state to the globular state, without crossing the Θ-point.
PACS: 61.30.-v – Liquid crystals / 36.20.-r – Macromolecules and polymer molecules / 83.70.Hq – Heterogeneous liquids: suspensions, dispersions, emulsions, pastes, slurries, foams, block copolymers, etc
© EDP Sciences, 2000
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.