A soft-core Gay-Berne model for the simulation of liquid crystals by Hamiltonian replica exchange.
@article{Berardi2009ASG,
title={A soft-core Gay-Berne model for the simulation of liquid crystals by Hamiltonian replica exchange.},
author={Roberto Berardi and Claudio Zannoni and Juho S. Lintuvuori and Mark R. Wilson},
journal={The Journal of chemical physics},
year={2009},
volume={131 17},
pages={
174107
}
}The Gay-Berne (GB) potential has proved highly successful in the simulation of liquid crystal phases, although it is fairly demanding in terms of resources for simulations of large (e.g., N>10(5)) systems, as increasingly required in applications. Here, we introduce a soft-core GB model, which exhibits both liquid crystal phase behavior and rapid equilibration. We show that the Hamiltonian replica exchange method, coupled with the newly introduced soft-core GB model, can effectively speed up…
27 Citations
Phase Transitions and Hysteresis for a Simple Model Liquid Crystal by Replica-Exchange Monte Carlo Simulations
- PhysicsMolecules
- 2021
The advantages of applying the temperature and pressure replica-exchange method to investigate the phase transitions and the hysteresis for liquid-crystal fluids were demonstrated and the identity of the crystalline phase was found to a hexagonal close-packed solid.
Constant-pressure simulations of Gay-Berne liquid-crystalline phases in cylindrical nanocavities.
- PhysicsPhysical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP
- 2013
In this work, uniaxial thermotropic LCs confined to nanosized cylindrical cavities are studied using isobaric parallel tempering Monte Carlo (MC) Monte Carlo simulations and it is found that the LC director tends to align strongly with the axis of thecylindrical cavity, which outweighs the self-organization of the LC to hexagonal in-plane order.
Main-chain swollen liquid crystal elastomers: a molecular simulation study
- Physics, Materials Science
- 2011
We have performed large-scale off-lattice computer simulations in a model system of swollen main-chain liquid-crystalline elastomers, constituted of weakly reticulated soft Gay–Berne chains,…
Phase diagram of the uniaxial and biaxial soft-core Gay-Berne model.
- PhysicsThe Journal of chemical physics
- 2011
Extensive calculations of the nematic region of the phase diagram show that endowing mesogenic particles with such soft repulsive interactions affect the stability range of the Nematic phases, and in the case of phase biaxiality it also shifts it to lower temperatures.
Statistical temperature molecular dynamics simulations applied to phase transitions in liquid crystalline systems.
- Physics, ChemistryThe Journal of chemical physics
- 2010
Results are presented demonstrating how, in combination with anisotropic soft core potentials, STMD simulation is able to sample efficiently across a large temperature window; and thus bridge across isotropic-liquid crystal phase transitions.
Development of Coarse-Grained Liquid-Crystal Polymer Model with Efficient Electrostatic Interaction: Toward Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Electroactive Materials
- Materials ScienceMaterials
- 2018
This work develops an LCP model which consists of coarse-grained mesogenic molecules and smeared charges, which successfully incorporates electric charges and dipoles and is therefore applicable to problems concerning an electric field.
Coupling Coarse-Grained to Fine-Grained Models via Hamiltonian Replica Exchange
- PhysicsJournal of chemical theory and computation
- 2020
The proposed method offers new possibilities for enhanced sampling of biomolecular conformations, making use of CG models without compromising the accuracy of the FG model.
Communication: equation of state of hard oblate ellipsoids by replica exchange Monte Carlo.
- PhysicsThe Journal of chemical physics
- 2011
The replica exchange Monte Carlo technique is implemented to produce the equation of state of hard 1:5 aspect-ratio oblate ellipsoids for a wide density range and captures the expected isotropic-nematic transition at low densities and a nematic-crystal transition at larger densities.
Acceleration of Liquid-Crystalline Phase Transition Simulations Using Selectively Scaled and Returned Molecular Dynamics
- Physics, Materials ScienceJ. Chem. Inf. Model.
- 2020
The molecular dynamics technique to accelerate simulation of phase transition to liquid-crystalline (LC) phases is demonstrated on the model LC system 4-octyl-4'-cyanobiphenyl (8CB) smectic A phase and is anticipated to accelerate the theoretical development of self-assembled organic materials containing both rigid and flexible moieties, including LC materials.
Computer simulations of biaxial nematics.
- PhysicsJournal of physics. Condensed matter : an Institute of Physics journal
- 2008
An overview of the simulation work performed so far is given, and relying on the recent experimental findings, focuses on the still unanswered questions which will determine the future challenges in the field.
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 86 REFERENCES
A new anisotropic soft-core model for the simulation of liquid crystal mesophases.
- Physics, ChemistryThe Journal of chemical physics
- 2008
The results demonstrate that there is a very strong coupling between the internal structure of the multipedal mesogen and the molecular order of the phase, with the mesogen spontaneously undergoing major structural rearrangement at the transition to the liquid crystal phase.
Hamiltonian replica exchange molecular dynamics using soft-core interactions.
- ChemistryThe Journal of chemical physics
- 2008
A novel Hamiltonian replica exchange molecular dynamics scheme that uses soft-core interactions between those parts of the system that contribute most to high energy barriers and proposes to include multiple replicas using the same Hamiltonian/level of softness.
Monte Carlo investigations of a Gay—Berne liquid crystal
- Physics
- 1993
We report extensive Monte Carlo simulations of two systems with 512 and 1000 particles interacting with a Gay–Berne potential with strength parameters (µ= 1, ν= 3) that enhance the side-by-side and…
Coarse-grained interaction potentials for anisotropic molecules.
- Materials ScienceThe Journal of chemical physics
- 2006
An efficient parametrization method is proposed for a recent variant of the Gay Berne potential for dissimilar and biaxial particles and it is demonstrated that the potential of mean force is representable with the same functional form, extending the application of this coarse-grained description to a broader range of molecules.
Molecular simulation of liquid crystals: progress towards a better understanding of bulk structure and the prediction of material properties.
- Materials Science, ChemistryChemical Society reviews
- 2007
This tutorial review covers recent progress in the field of computer simulation of liquid crystals. The development of the main "molecular-based" models for liquid crystals is described. These…
A molecular level simulation of a twisted nematic cell.
- PhysicsFaraday discussions
- 2010
We have performed a Monte Carlo simulation of a sub-micrometric twisted nematic cell with nearly 106 particles using an off-lattice molecular model of a liquid crystal. This computer experiment is a…
Progress in computer simulations of liquid crystals
- Materials Science, Chemistry
- 2005
This article reviews some of the recent progress in the simulation of liquid crystals across a range of length and time scales. Simulators now have an extensive range of models at their disposal,…
An investigation of soft-core potentials for the simulation of mesogenic molecules and molecules composed of rigid and flexible segments
- Materials ScienceComput. Phys. Commun.
- 2008
A Novel Hamiltonian Replica Exchange MD Protocol to Enhance Protein Conformational Space Sampling.
- ChemistryJournal of chemical theory and computation
- 2006
A novel replica exchange protocol is developed that uses modified force-field parameters to treat interparticle nonbonded potentials within the protein and between protein and solvent atoms, leaving unperturbed those relative to solvent-solvent interactions.
Towards in silico liquid crystals. Realistic transition temperatures and physical properties for n-cyanobiphenyls via molecular dynamics simulations.
- Chemistry, PhysicsChemphyschem : a European journal of chemical physics and physical chemistry
- 2009
By using the united-atom force field developed herein, it is shown that the experimental isotropic-nematic transition temperatures are reproduced within 4 K, allowing a molecular-level interpretation of the odd-even effect along the series.



