Y. Lansac et al., Microscopic structure and dynamics of a partial bilayer smectic liquid crystal - art. no. 051703, PHYS REV E, 6405(5), 2001, pp. 1703
Cyanobiphenyls (nCB's) represent a useful and intensively studied class of
mesogens. Many of the peculiar properties of nCB's (e.g., the occurence of
the partial bilayer smectic-A(d) phase) are thought to be a manifestation o
f short-range antiparallel association of neighboring molecules, resulting
from strong dipole-dipole interactions between cyano groups. To test and ex
tend existing models of microscopic ordering in nCB's, we carry out large-s
cale atomistic simulation studies of the microscopic structure and dynamics
of the Sm-A(d) phase of 4-octyl-4'-cyanobiphenyl (8CB). We compute a varie
ty of thermodynamic, structural, and dynamical properties for this material
, and make a detailed comparison of our results with experimental measureme
nts in order to validate our molecular model. Semiquantitative agreement wi
th experiment is found: the smectic layer spacing and mass density are well
reproduced, translational diffusion constants are similar to experiment, b
ut the orientational ordering of alkyl chains is overestimated. This simula
tion provides a detailed picture of molecular conformation, smectic layer s
tructure, and intermolecular correlations in Sm-A(d) 8CB, and demonstrates
that pronounced short-range antiparallel association of molecules arising f
rom dipole-dipole interactions plays a dominant role in determining the mol
ecular-scale structure of 8CB.