Nematic-isotropic phase transition in diblock fused-sphere chain fluids

Abstract

A density-functional theory for the isotropic-nematic phase transition in fluids of rigid or semiflexible fused hard-sphere chains, developed previously by the authors, is extended to diblock chains each consisting of both a rigid and a flexible part. The theory is compared with recent Monte Carlo simulation results of McBride et al. The theoretical results for the variation of pressure and nematic order parameter with density agree well with the simulation data over density ranges where the simulations find isotropic and nematic phases.