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Session MB - Drops I. Emulsions & Drops.
MIXED session, Tuesday afternoon, November 23
Grand II, Westin Seattle

[MB.006] Self-Assembly of Isotropic Drops in a Nematic Matrix Simulated by a Diffuse-Interface Method

Oleksandr Barannyk, Pengtao Yue, James J. Feng (Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Department of Mathematics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada), Chun Liu (Department of Mathematics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA), Jie Shen (Department of Mathematics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA)

Recent experiments have reported self-assembly of isotropic droplets in an anisotropic nematic suspending fluid. The most commonly seen patterns are lines of droplets parallel to the undisturbed matrix orientation. We have devised a diffuse-interface model to represent this two-phase system of complex fluids. A mixing energy is used to model the interfacial tension so that the interfaces no longer need to be tracked explicitly. Meanwhile, the liquid crystalline microstructure is represented by a regularized Frank elastic energy that is incorporated into a general variational framework. This talk describes dynamic simulations that explore the interaction of droplets and their assembly into regular patterns. With strong homeotropic anchoring on the surface, each drop nucleates a satellite point defect, and neighboring drops attract along their axis to form lines. The final pattern resembles experimental observations.

Part M of program listing