| Issue |
EPL
Volume 128, Number 6, December 2019
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 66001 | |
| Number of page(s) | 6 | |
| Section | Condensed Matter: Structural, Mechanical and Thermal Properties | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/128/66001 | |
| Published online | 31 January 2020 | |
Slaved coarsening in ferronematics
1 Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi - New Delhi 110016, India
2 School of Physical Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University - New Delhi 110067, India
Received: 25 October 2019
Accepted: 2 January 2020
We focus on understanding the influence of the two-component coupling in ferronematics, a colloidal suspension of magnetic nanoparticles in nematic liquid crystals. Using coarse-grained Landau-de Gennes free energies, we study the ordering dynamics of this complex fluid in d = 2 and present a range of analytical and numerical results. Our main observations are: i) slaved coarsening for quench temperatures T intermediate to the critical temperatures of the uncoupled components, ii) slower growth similar to the Lifshitz-Slyozov law 
for symmetric magneto-nematic coupling, iii) sub-domain morphologies dominated by interfacial defects for asymmetric coupling strengths. These novel results will serve to guide future experiments on this technologically important system.
PACS: 64.75.Gh – Phase separation and segregation in model systems (hard spheres, Lennard-Jones, etc.) / 77.80.Dj – Domain structure; hysteresis / 68.35.Rh – Phase transitions and critical phenomena
© EPLA, 2020
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