Surface tension of isotropic-nematic interfaces: fundamental measure theory for hard spherocylinders

A fluid constituted of hard spherocylinders is studied using a density functional theory for non-spherical hard particles, which can be written as a function of weighted densities. This is based on an extended deconvolution of the Mayer f-function for arbitrarily shaped convex hard bodies in tensorial weight functions, which depend each only on the shape and orientation of a single particle. In the course of an examination of the isotropic-nematic interface at coexistence the functional is applied to anisotropic and inhomogeneous problems for the first time. We find good qualitative agreement with other theoretical predictions and also with Monte Carlo simulations.