Матеріали XIII Всеукраїнської науково-практичної конференції студентів, аспірантів та молодих вчених «Теоретичні і прикладні проблеми фізики, математики та інформатики»

We consider a generic coarse-grained model suitable for the study of bulk self-assembly of liquid crystal (LC) macro-molecules. The cases include LC dendrimers, gold nanoparticles modified by polymer chains with terminating LC groups and others. The study is focused on the relation between a number of grafted chains, Nch, and the symmetry of the self-assembled bulk phases. Simple space-filling arguments are used first to estimate stability intervals for a rod-like, disc-like and spherulitic conformations in terms of Nch. These are followed by coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations for both spontaneous and aided self-assembly of LC macromolecules into bulk phases. In spontaneous self-assembly runs, essential coexistence of rod-like and disc-like conformations is observed in a broad interval of Nch, which prevents the formation of defect-free structures