Novel morphologies for laterally decorated metaparticles: Molecular dynamics simulation

We consider a mesoscale model for nano-sized metaparticles (MPs) composed of a central sphere decorated by polymer chains with laterally attached spherocylinder. The latter mimics the mesogenic (e.g., cyanobiphenyl) group. Molecular dynamics simulations of $100$ MPs reveal the existence of two novel morphologies: $\textrm{uCol}_\mathrm{h}$ (hexagonal columnar arrangement of MPs with strong uniaxial order of mesogens collinear to the columns axis) and $\mathrm{wCol}_\mathrm{h}$ [the same arrangement of MPs but with weak or no liquid crystalline (LC) order]. Collinearity of the LC director and the columnar axis in $\textrm{uCol}_\mathrm{h}$ morphology indicates its potentially different opto-mechanical response to an external perturbation as compared to the columnar phase for the terminally attached mesogens. Preliminary analysis of the structures of both phases is performed by studying the order parameters and by visualisation of the MPs arrangements. Different mechanisms for the mesogens reorientation are pointed out for the cases of their terminal and lateral attachment.

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