Liquid crystals molecular dynamics

Kato T (2000) Hydrogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals - Molecular Self-Assembly for Dynamically Functional Materials. 96 95-146 Katz E, see Shipway AN (2001) 99 237-281 Kauffmann GB, see Jorgensen CK (1990) 73 227-254 Keijzers CP, see Willemse J (1976) 28 83-126 Kelly JM, see Moucheron C (1998) 92 163-216... 

Hydrogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals Molecular Self-Assembly for Dynamically Functional Materials... 

A report has shown that an interesting evidence of non-equilibrium dynamics that depends on the molecular chirality of the liquid crystal exists a chiral liquid crystal molecular motor [101]. There is a water-permeation-driven motor that exists in a monolayer of a chiral liquid crystal, in which the molecules rotate around the... 

Kato T. Hydrogen-bonded liquid crystals molecular self-assembly for dynamically functional materials. In Fuiita M, editor. Molecular self-assembly organic versus inorganic approaches. Berlin Heidelberg Springer 2000. p. 95-146. 

Allen M P, Warren M A, Wilson M R, Sauron A and Wiliam S 1996 Molecular dynamics calculation of elastic constants in Gay-Berne nematic liquid crystals J. Chem. Phys. 105 2850-8... 

Wilson M R 1997 Molecular dynamics simulations of flexible liquid crystal molecules using a Gay-Berne/Lennard-Jones model J. Chem. Phys. 107 8654-63... 

R. W. Pastor. Techniques and applications of Langevin dynamics simulations. In G. R. Luckhurst and C. A. Veracini, editors. The Molecular Dynamics of Liquid Crystals, pages 85-138. Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 1994. 

Muller, K., Kothe, G., and Wassmer, K.-H. Dynamic Magnetic Resonance of Liquid crystal Polymers Molecular Organization and Macroscopic Properties. Vol. 95, pp. 1 — 56. 

In this article, methods for extracting ground state structural, dynamical and molecular electronic properties for liquid crystals have been outlined. It is clear that these methods have been applied only to a small number of systems... 

This article reviews progress in the field of atomistic simulation of liquid crystal systems. The first part of the article provides an introduction to molecular force fields and the main simulation methods commonly used for liquid crystal systems molecular mechanics, Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics. The usefulness of these three techniques is highlighted and some of the problems associated with the use of these methods for modelling liquid crystals are discussed. The main section of the article reviews some of the recent science that has arisen out of the use of these modelling techniques. The importance of the nematic mean field and its influence on molecular structure is discussed. The preferred ordering of liquid crystal molecules at surfaces is examined, along with the results from simulation studies of bilayers and bulk liquid crystal phases. The article also discusses some of the limitations of current work and points to likely developments over the next few years. 

Force fields split naturally into two main classes all-atom force fields and united atom force fields. In the former, each atom in the system is represented explicitly by potential functions. In the latter, hydrogens attached to heavy atoms (such as carbon) are removed. In their place single united (or extended) atom potentials are used. In this type of force field a CH2 group would appear as a single spherical atom. United atom sites have the advantage of greatly reducing the number of interaction sites in the molecule, but in certain cases can seriously limit the accuracy of the force field. United atom force fields are most usually required for the most computationally expensive tasks, such as the simulation of bulk liquid crystal phases via molecular dynamics or Monte Carlo methods (see Sect. 5.1). 

It is worth noting that much of the development work for the MM force fields has centred on low energy structures of molecules. Consequently, some of the force constants are less applicable to higher energy molecular structures that can occur in molecular dynamics simulations of liquid crystals. 

In contrast to the single molecule case, Monte Carlo methods tend to be rather less efficient than molecular dynamics in sampling phase space for a bulk fluid. Consequently, most of the bulk simulations of liquid crystals described in Sect. 5.1 use molecular dynamics simulation methods. 

Here the vector rj represents the centre of mass position, and D is usually averaged over several time origins to to improve statistics. Values for D can be resolved parallel and perpendicular to the director to give two components (D//, Dj ), and actual values are summarised for a range of studies in Table 3 of [45]. Most studies have found diffusion coefficients in the 10 m s range with the ratio D///Dj between 1.59 and 3.73 for calamitic liquid crystals. Yakovenko and co-workers have carried out a detailed study of the reorientational motion in the molecule PCH5 [101]. Their results show that conformational molecular flexibility plays an important role in the dynamics of the molecule. They also show that cage models can be used to fit the reorientational correlation functions of the molecule. 

The rapid rise in computer speed over recent years has led to atom-based simulations of liquid crystals becoming an important new area of research. Molecular mechanics and Monte Carlo studies of isolated liquid crystal molecules are now routine. However, care must be taken to model properly the influence of a nematic mean field if information about molecular structure in a mesophase is required. The current state-of-the-art consists of studies of (in the order of) 100 molecules in the bulk, in contact with a surface, or in a bilayer in contact with a solvent. Current simulation times can extend to around 10 ns and are sufficient to observe the growth of mesophases from an isotropic liquid. The results from a number of studies look very promising, and a wealth of structural and dynamic data now exists for bulk phases, monolayers and bilayers. Continued development of force fields for liquid crystals will be particularly important in the next few years, and particular emphasis must be placed on the development of all-atom force fields that are able to reproduce liquid phase densities for small molecules. Without these it will be difficult to obtain accurate phase transition temperatures. It will also be necessary to extend atomistic models to several thousand molecules to remove major system size effects which are present in all current work. This will be greatly facilitated by modern parallel simulation methods that allow molecular dynamics simulations to be carried out in parallel on multi-processor systems [115]. 

Zannoni C (1994) In Luckhurst GR, Veracini CA (eds) Molecular dynamics of liquid crystals, chap 2. Kluwer, Dordrecht... 

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