Eur. Phys. J. E (2008) 25: 181-186
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2007-10280-6

Regular Article

Biaxial liquid-crystal elastomers: A lattice model

¹ Fakulteta za matematiko in fiziko, Univerza v Ljubljani, Jadranska 19, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia
² Dipartimento di Chimica Fisica ed Inorganica and INSTM -CRIMSON-, Università di Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 4, I-40136, Bologna, Italy

^* e-mail: gregor.skacej@fmf.uni-lj.si

Received: 27 July 2007
Accepted: 28 January 2008
Published online: 21 March 2008

Abstract

We present a simple coarse-grained lattice model for monodomain biaxial liquid-crystal elastomers and perform large-scale Monte Carlo simulations in the proposed model system. Orientational ordering --uniaxial or biaxial-- reflects in sample deformations on cooling the system. The simulation output is used to predict calorimetry data and deuterium magnetic resonance spectra.