| Issue |
EPL
Volume 106, Number 4, May 2014
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 44004 | |
| Number of page(s) | 6 | |
| Section | Electromagnetism, Optics, Acoustics, Heat Transfer, Classical Mechanics, and Fluid Dynamics | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/106/44004 | |
| Published online | 28 May 2014 | |
Antinematic local order in dendrimer liquids
1 Institute for Theoretical Physics, Technische Universität Wien - Wiedner Hauptstraße 8-10, A-1040 Vienna, Austria
2 Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana - Jadranska 19, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
3 Jožef Stefan Institute - Jamova 39, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
4 Institute for Theoretical Physics and Center for Computational Materials Science, Technische Universität Wien Wiedner Hauptstraße 8-10, A-1040 Vienna, Austria
Received: 27 February 2014
Accepted: 1 May 2014
We use monomer-resolved numerical simulations to study the positional and orientational structure of a dense dendrimer solution, focusing on the effects of the prolate shape and deformability of the dendrimers on the short-range order. Our results provide unambiguous evidence that the nearest-neighbor shell of a tagged particle consists of a mixture of crossed, side-by-side, side-to-end, and end-to-end pair configurations, imposing antinematic rather than nematic order observed in undeformable rodlike particles. This packing pattern persists even at densities where particle overlap becomes sizable. We demonstrate that the antinematic arrangement is compatible with the A15 crystal lattice reported in several dendrimer compounds.
PACS: 47.57.J- – Colloidal systems / 61.20.-p – Structure of liquids / 61.20.Ja – Computer simulation of liquid structure
© EPLA, 2014
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