TY - JOUR
T1 - Dependence of interparticle force on temperature and cell thickness in nematic colloids
AU - Kondo, Noboru
AU - Iwashita, Yasutaka
AU - Kimura, Yasuyuki
PY - 2010/8/18
Y1 - 2010/8/18
N2 - We have experimentally studied the interparticle force between two particles accompanied by hyperbolic hedgehog defects in a nematic liquid crystal. The force F was measured with dual-beam optical tweezers at various temperatures and in cells with various thicknesses. In a thick cell, the dependence of F on the interparticle distance R obtained at different temperatures can be scaled to a universal curve of F∼R-4 for R>3a, where a is the radius of a particle. The effective elastic constant evaluated from F is found to be in good agreement with splay constant of the nematic liquid crystal. In a thin cell, the magnitude of F decreases and the dependence of F on R becomes short-ranged as the thickness of a cell, L, decreases. The reduced force curves, F L4 against R/L, at different L are found to be scaled to a single theoretical curve which has been proposed recently.
AB - We have experimentally studied the interparticle force between two particles accompanied by hyperbolic hedgehog defects in a nematic liquid crystal. The force F was measured with dual-beam optical tweezers at various temperatures and in cells with various thicknesses. In a thick cell, the dependence of F on the interparticle distance R obtained at different temperatures can be scaled to a universal curve of F∼R-4 for R>3a, where a is the radius of a particle. The effective elastic constant evaluated from F is found to be in good agreement with splay constant of the nematic liquid crystal. In a thin cell, the magnitude of F decreases and the dependence of F on R becomes short-ranged as the thickness of a cell, L, decreases. The reduced force curves, F L4 against R/L, at different L are found to be scaled to a single theoretical curve which has been proposed recently.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevE.82.020701
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevE.82.020701
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77956121369
VL - 82
JO - Physical Review E
JF - Physical Review E
SN - 2470-0045
IS - 2
M1 - 020701
ER -