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Updated: Aug 16, 2026

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Evidence for the weak steric hindrance scenario in the supercooled-state reorientational dynamics
Song-Ho Chong1, Angel J Moreno, Francesco Sciortino
1Institute for Molecular Science, Okazaki 444-8585, Japan.
Abstract:
We use molecular-dynamics computer simulations to study the translational and reorientational dynamics of a glass-forming liquid of dumbbells. For sufficiently elongated molecules the standard strong steric hindrance scenario for the rotational dynamics is found. However, for small elongations we find a different scenario--the weak steric hindrance scenario--caused by a new type of glass transition in which the orientational dynamics of the molecule's axis undergoes a dynamical transition with a continuous increase of the nonergodicity parameter. These results are in agreement with the theoretical predictions by the mode-coupling theory for the glass transition.
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