Computer Simulation of Chiral Liquid Crystal Phases II. The Use of Twisted Boundary Conditions

Abstract

Abstract Using the Monte Carlo technique, we study an ensemble of N = 256 particles interacting via a chiral modified Gay‐Berne potential introduced in part I. We introduce twisted boundary conditions which allow the formation of helical phases with lower potential energy and a larger pitch in comparison with the results of simulations using cubic periodic boundary conditions. The amount of chiral and achiral energy contributions to the total potential energy are discussed for the obtained cholesteric, helical smectic and blue phases.