Speaker
Steven Blaber
(University of Waterloo)
Description
The equilibrium phase behaviour of a semi-dilute, liquid crystalline (LC) polymer brush is investigated, using self-consistent field theory with wormlike chains and implicit solvent. For good solvent conditions, the isotropic interactions favor a stretched brush while the anisotropic LC interactions favor collapsing into a high-density nematic state. By allowing the nematic director to orient freely, we find that the polymers collapse by tilting rather than backfolding as previously thought. Within the implicit solvent model the transition to a tilted state is an instability; however, the transition becomes continuous once the semi-dilute approximation is relaxed.
Primary authors
Steven Blaber
(University of Waterloo)
Prof.
Nasser Abukhdeir
(University of Waterloo)
Mark Matsen
