TY - JOUR
T1 - Nematic order in small systems
T2 - Measuring the elastic and wall-anchoring constants in vibrofluidized granular rods
AU - Galanis, Jennifer
AU - Nossal, Ralph
AU - Losert, Wolfgang
AU - Harries, Daniel
PY - 2010/10/13
Y1 - 2010/10/13
N2 - We investigate nematic order in vibrated granular rods confined to a small quasi-2D container less than 10 rod lengths in diameter. As rod density ρ increases, patterning shifts from bipolar to uniform alignment. We find that a continuum liquid crystal free energy functional captures key patterning features down to almost the particle size. By fitting theory to experiments, we estimate the relative values of bend and splay elastic constants and wall anchoring. We find that splay is softer than bend for all ρ and rod lengths tested, while the ratio of the average elastic constant to wall anchoring increases with ρ.
AB - We investigate nematic order in vibrated granular rods confined to a small quasi-2D container less than 10 rod lengths in diameter. As rod density ρ increases, patterning shifts from bipolar to uniform alignment. We find that a continuum liquid crystal free energy functional captures key patterning features down to almost the particle size. By fitting theory to experiments, we estimate the relative values of bend and splay elastic constants and wall anchoring. We find that splay is softer than bend for all ρ and rod lengths tested, while the ratio of the average elastic constant to wall anchoring increases with ρ.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77957894145&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.168001
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.168001
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AN - SCOPUS:77957894145
SN - 0031-9007
VL - 105
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
IS - 16
M1 - 168001
ER -