Molecular dynamics study of the isotropic-nematic quench

Effects of cylindrical and spherical confinement on the kinetics of the isotropic-nematic quench is studied numerically. The nematic liquid crystal structure was modeled by a modified induced-dipole–induced-dipole interaction. Molecules were allowed to wander around points of a hexagonal lattice. Brownian molecular dynamics was used in order to access macroscopic time scales. In the bulk we distinguish between the early, domain, and late stage regime. The early regime is characterized by the exponential growth of the nematic uniaxial order parameter. In the domain regime domains are clearly visible and the average nematic domain size ${\xi }_d$ obeys the dynamical scaling law ${\xi }_d\sim t^{\gamma }.$ The late stage evolution is dominated by dynamics of individual defects. In a confined system the qualitative change of the scaling behavior appears when ${\xi }_d$ becomes comparable to a typical linear dimension R of the confinement. In the confining regime $({\xi }_d>~R)$ the scaling coefficient γ depends on the details of the confinement and also the final equilibrium nematic structure. The domain growth is well described with the Kibble-Zurek mechanism.